HENDERSON 


ROSE  E.  YOUNG 


0.  ZSGMMWie'  cJiW 


HENDERSON 


HEN  D  ERSO  N 


By  Eose  E.  Young 


Author  of  "  Sally  of  Missouri" 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

Cbe  Fttecrsibc  press,  Cambribo* 
1904 


COPYRIGHT    1904    BY   ROSE    E.    YOUNG 
ALL    RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Published  February 


to 
E.  8.  YOUNG  AND  J.  W.  YOUNG 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I.  THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE  ...      1 
II.  THE  LIFE  ON  THE  TABLE     .        .        43 

III.  THE  ROSE-RED  GLOW       .        .        .78 

IV.  THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  TANQLER       .      118 
V.   THE  WAY  OF  THE  STRONG      .        .  152 

VL  THE  BEGINNING  179 


HEKDEBSON 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

FROM  the  depot  at  Penangton,  Morning 
County,  Missouri,  to  the  one  line  of  street- 
cars it  is  ten  miles.  Henderson  figured  that 
out  for  himself,  as  he  stumbled  irritably  over 
the  rough  road,  across  the  bridge,  up  the 
plank  walk,  to  the  car.  It  was  an  October 
evening,  and  the  day  was  trailing  off  in  a 
gray,  shining  halation  that  was  neither  mist 
nor  fog,  but  dancing  haze.  Henderson  saw 
far-away  houses  brooded  over  by  gray  wings ; 
he  saw  rickety  wheels  of  gray  spiked  by  the 
small  gleam  of  the  street-lamps ;  and  he  saw 
occasional  people  work  up  out  of,  and  twist 
back  into,  the  farther  distance  in  gray  spirals. 
The  whole  town  and  the  hills  beyond  it  were 
1 


HENDERSON 

one  wavering,  lightening,  darkening  scheme 
of  gray,  except  where,  far  to  the  west,  a 
stretch  of  red  lay  along  the  sky. 

As  he  came  on  toward  the  car,  Henderson 
had  a  half-dashed,  half-defiant  look  in  his 
eyes.  "  You  're  a  pretty  cuss  !  "  he  mumbled 
once  or  twice.  "  Better  have  stayed  in  Chi- 
cago in  the  first  place.  Better  have  stayed  in 
Dixburn  in  the  last  place.  Penangton  ! " 
He  looked  about  him  disgustedly.  To  the 
west  he  could  distinguish  the  outline  of  a 
tall  building,  shadowy  and  uncertain  in  the 
gloom ;  he  picked  out  the  white  letters  across 
its  sides  :  "  P-e-n-r-y-n  M-i-1-l-s."  He  looked 
to  the  east,  and  saw  a  straggling  line  of 
sheds.  He  read  the  letters  on  their  sides 
easily  enough,  because  his  eyes  had  become 
accustomed  to  the  first  part  of  the  combina- 
tion :  "  Penryn  C-o-a-1  — Penryn  Coal  P-o-c- 
—  Penryn  Coal  Pockets."  He  stopped  half- 
way up  the  plank  walk,  dropped  his  heavy 
traveling-case,  and  worked  the  fingers  of 
his  aching  hand.  His  eyes,  sweeping  south- 
2 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

ward,  were  caught  by  a  trim  brick  building 
beyond  the  depot.  It  had  white  letters  across 
its  front.  "  The  first  word  is  Penryn,"  said 
Henderson,  at  a  guess.  "  No,  the  first  word 

is  T-h-o-r-l-e-y.  Thorley-P-e-n-r Uh-unh  ! 

I  knew  Penryn  would  be  along.  Now  what 's 
the  rest  ?  Thorley-Penryn  S-e-r-o-t-h-e-r  — 
Oh,  go  to  the  dickens  !  "  he  finished  impo- 
tently.  "  I  don't  care  what  you  are."  Still 
farther  south  he  descried  the  headstones  of 
a  cemetery.  "  Good !  One  can  at  least  die 
in  Penangton.  I'll  bet  the  tallest  shaft  is 
named  Penryn."  The  night's  blacker  shadow 
leaped  up  out  of  the  earth  then,  and  the 
haze  became  thick  gloom.  The  last  red  flare 
was  gone  from  the  west.  Two  men  came  up 
the  plank  walk  toward  Henderson. 

"  Coolish  night,"  he  heard  one  saying,  as 
they  clacked  off  northward. 

"  Brrrt !  It  is  a  coolish  night,"  said  Hen- 
derson to  himself.  He  turned  to  pick  up  his 
valise,  but  for  some  reason  his  hands  went 
together  first,  and  he  clinched  them  tightly. 
3 


HENDERSON 

"  A  coolish  night,"  he  heard  himself  re- 
peating, with  a  wandering  intonation.  Then 
he  shook  himself  threateningly.  "  Oh,  I  '11 
try  again.  Of  course  I  '11  try,"  he  said ; 
but  he  said  it  like  a  man  who  is  trying  to 
anaesthetize  his  soul ;  and  when  he  got  into 
the  car,  the  look  in  his  eyes  was  more  dis- 
tinctively dashed  than  defiant. 

"Is  there  a  driver? "  he  by  and  by  asked 
wistfully  of  the  one  other  occupant  of  the 
car. 

"  Yes,  there 's  a  driver,"  —  the  other  occu- 
pant looked  out  of  the  window  at  a  frame 
house  which  stood  just  where  the  plank  walk 
ended  and  the  brick  pavement  and  the  car 
track  began,  —  "  but  there  's  also  a  saloon." 

Henderson  bit  his  lower  lip  in  a  confiden- 
tial enjoyment  of  the  quality  of  that  voice. 
There  was  a  note  in  it  of  standing  things 
good-naturedly  when  they  couldn't  be 
helped. 

"  I  wonder  if  there 's  no  way  of  breaking 
the  connection  ?  "  he  said,  getting  back  to 
4 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

the  driver  and  the  saloon  with  a  jerk.  He 
went  to  the  car  door  and  hallooed  at  the 
frame  house.  A  man  came  to  the  door. 

"  Dave  ain't  quite  ready  yet,"  called  the 
man,  thickly  but  genially.  "Jes  wait  a 
minute  till  he  wets  his  whis'le,  will  you  ?  " 

It  seemed  the  thing  to  do  under  the  circum- 
stances. The  air  had  the  crispness  of  early 
autumn,  and  Henderson  saw  that  the  woman 
in  the  car  felt  it ;  so  he  shut  the  door  and 
came  patiently  back  to  his  seat. 

"  It 's  just  one  of  Penangton's  ways,"  she 
explained,  with  a  funny  little  lift  of  her 
brows. 

Henderson  took  his  lower  lip  into  confi- 
dence again  and  poised  himself — in  mid-air, 
as  it  were  —  on  the  sound  of  that  voice.  It 
had  so  many  kinds  of  suggestion  in  it.  She 
had  said  only  two  sentences  to  him,  but  the 
first  had  made  him  aware  that  whatever  was 
worth  laughing  at  in  the  world  she  was  ready 
to  laugh  at,  and  the  next  had  made  him 
aware  that  she  had  run  the  gamut  of  Penang- 
5 


HENDERSON 

ton  from  end  to  end.  After  the  atony  of  the 
past  few  weeks  he  was  glad  of  his  rising 
interest  in  that  voice,  in  anything.  His  soul, 
he  knew,  was  somewhere  near  in  the  same 
tense  attitude  his  body  had  assumed  out  on 
the  plank  walk,  but  he  had  a  desire  to  tell 
his  soul  to  shut  up,  to  come  along,  to  make 
the  best  of  it. 

"  It 's  quite  a  town,  Penangton  ?  " 

"  The  lamp  is  sputtering,"  said  the  woman, 
in  reply.  "  Could  n't  you  turn  the  wick 
higher?  Oh,  goodness,  it's  going  out! 
Why,  there 's  no  oil  in  it." 

They  both  got  up  hurriedly,  but  the  lamp 
was  too  far  gone  for  rescue.  It  began  to 
smoke  dismally. 

"  I  '11  go  get  the  driver,"  said  Henderson. 
"  Just  wait  here  a  minute."  He  jumped  off 
the  car  and  ran  up  the  steps  to  the  saloon. 
Presently  he  came  back,  shaking  his  head. 
"The  driver's  drunk  for  fair,"  he  said. 
"  Everybody  in  there 's  drunk.  What  '11  we 
do?" 

6 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

"Couldn't  you  drive?"  she  asked  mer- 
rily. 

He  looked  down  the  silent  street  and  his 
eyes  lit  up  a  little.  "  I  '11  drive  you  home, 
if  you  '11  let  me,"  he  said,  with  decision.  "  I 
can  just  do  it."  He  ran  through  to  the  front 
of  the  car,  and  unwound  the  reins  from  the 
brake.  The  mules  stirred  slowly  and  sorrow- 
fully. "Shall  I?"  asked  Henderson.  The 
woman  began  to  laugh.  "  Do  you  live  on  the 
car-line?"  went  on  Henderson  gleefully.  He 
laughed,  too.  It  seemed  good  to  be  pulling 
his  soul  along  out  of  its  tragics  into  some- 
thing humorous  and  commonplace.  "  Come 
up ! "  He  shook  the  reins  out  over  the  mules. 
"  It 's  my  idea  to  drive  until  I  stop  to  let  you 
out,  then  drive  on  a  little  farther,  and  leave 
the  car  standing  on  the  track,  while  I  cut  for 
an  hotel.  Do  you  think  it  will  work?  —  The 
mules  seem  to  like  to  stand."  His  voice  broke 
up  into  little  chuckles,  like  a  schoolboy's. 

The  woman  came  out  on  the  front  platform 
to  him.  She  could  hardly  talk  for  laughing. 
7 


HENDERSON 

"  It  will  work,"  she  said,  "  unless  somebody 
else  gets  on  the  car." 

Henderson's  face  wrinkled  a  little,  but  he 
shot  the  leather  quirt  out  over  the  mules 
briskly.  "Nobody  will  get  on,"  he  said. 
"  I  '11  never  be  able  to  stop  this  team."  He 
felt  so  exhilarated  that  it  was  like  pain.  The 
car  began  to  make  a  great  banging  noise  that 
just  suited  him.  The  way  the  sparks  flew 
from  the  hoofs  of  the  mules  just  suited  him. 
The  way  that  woman  leaned  back  against 
the  car  door  and  laughed  just  suited  him. 
It  was  all  so  entirely  on  the  outside.  There 
was  nothing  introspective  about  it.  He 
looked  back  at  her  gayly.  "I  hope  you 
live  at  the  other  end  of  the  line?"  he 
queried. 

"About  half  way." 

"  I  hope  it 's  a  long  line." 

"  About  two  miles,  not  counting  the  rough- 
ness." 

"  Don't  count  the  roughness.  Nothing 
counts." 

8 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

"  That 's  it,  —  nothing  counts.  Is  n't  this 
a  lark?" 

Henderson  nodded  brightly.  "  Will  it  be 
dark  like  this  all  the  way  ?  "  he  asked  ;  and 
when  she  said  yes,  he  began  to  sing  the  first 
bars  of  a  gay  little  air  under  his  breath  ;  the 
woman  sang  too,  both  of  them  holding  their 
voices  down  cautiously. 

"  Don't  you  ever  finish  things  ?  "  she  com- 
plained finally,  after  trying  in  vain  to  adapt 
her  voice  to  Henderson's  many-tuned  mel- 
ody. 

"  No,"  said  Henderson.  "No;  I  don't  like 
the  finish  —  of  anything."  He  moved  back 
to  where  she  was,  and  leaned  against  the 
car  frame,  with  the  reins  dangling  carelessly. 
"The  beginning  is  always  so  much  more 
interesting." 

She  rocked  her  head  on  the  door-jamb  at 
her  back.  "  Mmh  !  I  don't  know."- 

"  Oh,  yes  !  "  cried  Henderson.    "  In  the 
beginning  you  have  the  beginning  and  all 
you  can  imagine  about  the  end." 
9 


HENDERSON 

"But  in  the  end  you  have  the  end  and 
all  you  can  remember  about  the  begin- 
ning." 

"  Remember ! "  It  was  a  bad  word  for 
Henderson.  Something  like  a  shiver  passed 
over  him.  "  I  '11  back  imagination,  anticipa- 
tion, against  memory,  seven  days  in  the  week, 
won't  you  ?  " 

"  Hold  in  your  mule  steeds  here,"  said  the 
woman.  "  Steady  for  the  corner." 

They  swung  around  the  corner,  and  started 
on  a  gentle  down  grade  between  two  rows 
of  splendid  trees.  "  Say,"  said  Henderson, 
following  her  lead  like  a  happy  child,  and 
shunting  the  conversation  off  on  a  side  track 
again,  "  say,  are  n't  you  cold  ?  " 

"No,  indeed.  Is  n't  this  air  fine ?  That's 
one  good  thing  we  have  in  Penangton." 

"  What  other  good  things  do  you  have  in 
Penangton  ?  " 

"  Oh,  mills  and  coal-mines  and  an  academy. 
Then  there 's  the  county,"  —  she  gave  a 
wide  sweep  of  her  arm  which  seemed  to  skip 
10 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

over  the  town  and  encircle  something  out- 
side it,  —  "  wheat !" 

"  Many  doctors  here  ?  " 

She  looked  back  into  the  car  at  the  small 
case  which  sat  beside  his  large  one.  "  Oh ! 
I  see.  Yes,  there  are  a  great  many  doc- 
tors." 

"What  school?" 

"  Two  who  get  their  bills  paid  eventually, 
two  who  forget  to  send  out  bills,  and  one 
rascal." 

Henderson  propped  one  foot  on  the  splash- 
board of  the  car.  "  The  last  class  seems  to 
invite  as  being  least  crowded,"  he  commented 
gravely. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know ;  if  it  comes  to  that, 
they  are  all  more  or  less  rascals,  —  at  least 
they  don't  believe  in  themselves.  That 's  a 
pretty  bad  sort  of  rascality,  you  know.  Are 
you  coming  here  to  live  ? "  she  asked  sud- 
denly, turning  her  face  toward  him. 

"  Like  as  not." 

"  Well,  if  you  do,  there  's  one  thing  in 
11 


HENDERSON 

Penangton  you  want  to  look  out  for. 
There  's  one  thing  that  is  n't  a  good  thing. 
It 's  Penrynism." 

"What'sPenrynism?" 

"  It 's  the  money  disease.  Some  doctors 
get  it.  The  rascal  here  has  it." 

Henderson  dropped  his  head,  and  whacked 
at  his  shoes  with  the  butt  of  his  quirt.  "  I 
expect  I'll  get  it,  then.  I  feel  particularly 
susceptible  to  infection  of  that  kind  just  at 
this  writing."  Immediately  he  was  as  sombre 
as  he  had  been  out  there  on  the  plank  walk ; 
his  merriment  had  been  a  thin  cloak,  after 
all,  and  it  had  worn  through. 

"Slow  up  now,"  said  the  woman  next. 
"I'm  almost  home.  Just  around  this  last 


corner." 


He  drew  his  breath  in  sharply,  and  made 
the  mules  take  the  corner  very  slowly.  He 
made  them  go  slower  yet  when  he  found 
that  he  was  on  a  street  where  the  trees  were 
so  big  and  so  close  together,  and  the  street- 
lamps  were  so  little  and  so  far  apart,  that  it 
12 


THE   DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

was  as  black  as  Egypt,  and  as  mysteriously 
pleasant. 

"Stop.   I'm  home." 

"  Now  you  see,"  said  Henderson  ruefully, 
"  why  I  hate  the  end  of  things."  He  stepped 
down  to  help  her  from  the  car. 

"  Remember  the  beginning.  —  Oh,  you 
are  going  to  have  to  learn  to  stand  remem- 
bering," she  insisted,  laughing  lightly. 
"  Here,  this  is  my  gate." 

He  ran  ahead  and  opened  it  for  her,  and 
as  she  passed  through  he  lifted  his  hat  high 
and  made  her  a  sweeping  bow.  "  I  'd  rather 
hope  it  is  n't  the  end,"  he  said. 

She  only  laughed  again,  and  stood  looking 
at  him  for  a  short  moment.  "  I  think  it  is. 
But  it  was  a  nice  ride.  I  shan't  forget  it. 
Good-night."  She  called  back  another  cheer- 
ful good-night,  as  she  went  up  the  walk, 
while  Henderson,  at  the  gate,  watched  her, 
with  a  lonely  look  on  his  face.  Ahead  of  her 
he  traced  out  a  big  frowning  house-front, 
across  the  lower  part  of  which  ran  a  light 
13 


HENDERSON 

veranda,  like  a  misplaced  smile.  When  the 
door  had  opened  to  her,  she  paused  for  a 
moment  in  the  light  from  the  hall,  with  her 
face  turned  his  way ;  then  the  door  shut 
quietly.  Henderson  rubbed  his  hand  softly 
over  the  brass  head  of  the  low  gate-post, 
until  presently  his  eyes  traveled  to  it. 
"  P-e-n-r-y-n,"  he  spelled  unseeingly.  When 
he  did  begin  to  see  it,  he  said  flat-footedly, 
"  Well,  I  'm  damned  !  "  and  turned  back  to 
his  mules. 

They  were  gone.  As  far  down  the  street 
as  he  could  see,  there  was  no  sign  of  them. 
"  Now,  how  the  mischief  am  I  to  find  my 
way  ?  "  mused  Henderson,  without  concern. 
"  Follow  the  track,"  suggested  common  sense. 
"  Follow,  follow  !  "  supplemented  romance 
fancifully ;  "  a  track  must  lead  from  the  be- 
ginning to  the  ending.  So  light  her  up,  Fate, 
kind  lady ;  we  follow."  With  that  Hender- 
son looked  at  the  Penryn  house  purposefully. 

He  was  sure  the  car-track  would  pass  an 
hotel  somewhere,  and  he  had  turned  but 
14 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

another  corner  when  he  came  upon  one,  with 
the  car  and  the  sad  mules  standing  before  it. 
A  crowd  of  mild-looking  men  were  around  the 
car. 

"But  how  you  going  to  account  for 
the  satchels  ? "  one  man  was  asking,  with 
the  hope  of  excitement  vibrating  blithely  in 
his  voice. 

Henderson  got  into  the  crowd  at  this  junc- 
ture. "  I  '11  account  for  the  satchels,"  he  vol- 
unteered. "  You  '11  find  my  name  on  them, 
Henderson.  I  left  them  in  the  car  while  I 
went  into  the  saloon  for  the  driver.  —  The 
mules  ambled  off  while  I  was  out  of  the  car." 
It  was  a  long  hiatus,  but  Henderson  saw  that 
there  was  no  need  of  bridging  it  over;  that 
the  men  around  him  were  used  to  the  driver, 
the  saloon,  and  the  mules. 

Once  in  the  hotel,  he  went  directly  to  his 
room,  took  off  his  top-coat,  and  sat  down  in 
front  of  a  comfortably  glowing  grate.  "  Very 
beautiful,"  he  said,  straight  at  the  red  coals. 
For  a  few  minutes  longer  a  half-blunted 
15 


HENDERSON 

interest  remained  in  his  face ;  then  his  hands 
spread  out  weakly  on  the  arms  of  the  chair 
and  he  dropped  his  chin  as  though  he  were 
going  down  in  his  clothes  with  the  shame- 
faced resolution  never  to  come  up  again. 

Slowly  and  reluctantly  his  mind  went  back 
over  his  most  recent  past,  the  Illinois  days. 
First  of  all  came  the  medical  college  in  Chi- 
cago ;  and  clearest  of  all  was  the  vision  of 
Alden,  the  dean,  on  the  rostrum  before  the 
class,  his  burning  eyes  throwing  off  some  kind 
of  illumination,  conviction  radiating  from 
every  inch  of  his  long,  swaying  body.  And 
loudest  of  all  rang  the  recollection  of  Alden's 
voice,  high  and  quivering  in  its  advocacy  of 
the  Hahnemannian  creed,  the  beauty  of  the 
"  law,"  the  totality  of  the  symptoms,  the  cen- 
tral modality ;  or  fiercely  earnest  in  its  de- 
nunciation of  routinism,  specifics,  prescribing 
in  the  lump.  Ah,  Alden  had  believed.  That 
had  been  the  intrinsic  beauty  of  sitting  under 
him.  Henderson's  perception  had  always 
been  of  the  keenest,  and  Henderson,  of  all 
16 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

the  men  and  women  who  had  listened  to 
Alden,  and  learned  of  him,  in  the  first  four 
years  of  the  college's  struggle  for  existence, 
had  been  the  one  to  carry  away  with  him 
the  deepest  impress  of  Alden's  spirit.  He, 
of  them  all,  had  gone  out  from  the  college 
doors  with  the  feeling  most  strong  upon  him 
that  he  had  had  a  glorious  bath  in  some  deep, 
clean  current  of  ethics.  He  had  never  been 
able  to  account  to  himself  for  Alden's  influ- 
ence upon  him.  Before  he  went  up  to  college 
he  had  been  commonplace  enough,  a  quick, 
shrewd  fellow,  with  a  good  business  head, 
acute  sympathies,  and  one  strong  inclination 
in  the  world,  —  the  inclination  to  study 
medicine ;  but  when  he  left  Alden  he  was 
like  a  finely  charged  wire,  across  which 
hummed  and  sang  concepts  of  his  profession 
as  the  "  noble  profession,"  the  scientific  pos- 
sibilities of  the  "  noble  profession,"  life  as 
an  opportunity  for  the  "  noble  profession," 
—  all  that  went  to  make  Alden's  lif e  like  a 
benediction. 

17 


HENDERSON 

And  what  happened?  What  always  hap- 
pens to  the  young  physician  who  hasn't 
money  enough  to  wait  three  years  for  pa- 
tients, and  abide  by  the  Code  while  waiting  ? 
He  had  first  "  located  "  in  Chicago,  in  a 
South  Side  boarding-house  ;  a  little  later  he 
had  located  in  a  town  in  central  Illinois ; 
and  after  that  he  had  variously  located  all 
over  the  state,  until  he  found  himself  at 
Dixburn,  in  southern  Illinois.  Henderson's 
memory  could  linger  in  any  one  of  the  half 
dozen  towns  that  had  preceded  Dixburn,  and 
could  find  in  each  something  halfway  pleasant 
or  halfway  worthwhile ;  but  Dixburn  had  been 
hell  from  start  to  finish.  He  had  to  admit  that 
his  acute  sufferings  in  Dixburn  had  had  no 
better  or  bigger  excuse  than  that  his  clothes 
had  begun  there  to  show  signs  of  irreparable 
wear,  and  he  had  had  no  money  for  new 
ones.  Something  psychical  worked  itself  out 
in  him  during  the  second  month  that  he 
loafed  and  suffered  around  that  sun-baked 
Illinois  town.  It  might  have  been  change, 
18 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

or  it  might  have  been  development,  or 
it  might  have  been  reversion.  "  I  have 
got  down  to  my  clothes,"  was  the  way 
he  passed  judgment  upon  himself ;  and,  as 
he  had  the  time,  he  began  to  outline,  with 
some  contemptuous  amusement,  the  sort  of 
man  he  would  have  been  if  it  had  happened 
that  he  had  never  been  influenced  by  Alden. 
When  he  had  put  himself  to  himself  as 
"  ordinary,"  he  went  under  a  wet  blanket 
of  conviction  that  he  must  get  at  life  on  a 
different  plane ;  that  he  had  been  keyed  up 
too  high  in  the  beginning.  A  little  later  on 
in  that  last  month,  there  had  come  a  day 
when  one  of  his  shoes  cracked  straight  across 
the  top ;  and  in  the  black,  helpless  cursing 
that  Henderson  stuffed  into  the  crack  he 
checked  off  self-potentialities  never  before 
suspected.  As  he  sat  and  glared  at  the  shoe, 
he  told  himself  unqualifiedly  that  he  was 
done  with  trying  to  meet  the  conditions  of 
lif  e  in  the  Alden  way  ;  that  he  was  ready  to 
do  anything  now  for  money,  money  !  and 
19 


HENDERSON 

that  Fate  would  better  not  tempt  him.  His 
face  assumed  too  sharp  an  expression ;  it 
became  the  face  of  a  man  in  danger  of  over- 
reaching himself,  in  his  greediness  for  gain. 
He  felt  sure  that,  if  opportunity  had  come 
his  way,  he  would  have  done  things  that 
much  worse  men  than  he  never  do.  The 
whiteness  and  the  fineness  of  Alden's  in- 
fluence lifted  from  him  entirely,  and  circled 
off  above  him  with  a  cool  backward  fan- 
ning. 

Then  a  medical  magazine  offered  a  prize 
of  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  for  the  best 
essay  on  The  Physician  as  Friend,  and  Hen- 
derson, with  rebellion  and  blasphemy  and 
battered-down  belief  in  his  heart,  wrote  eth- 
ically, and  got  the  one  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars.  Inevitably,  the  next  thing  he  did 
was  to  buy  some  shoes.  That  the  ethical 
should  have  stretched  out  a  hand  to  him 
with  a  purse  in  it  just  at  this  moment  half 
frightened  him.  He  walked  about  Dixburn 

in  his  new  shoes  for  another  month  in  crushed 
20 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

incompetency,  and  when  he  crossed  over  to 
Penangton  he  was  still  effectually  flattened 
out.  The  truth  was,  he  told  himself  in  final 
review,  as  he  sat  there  with  his  face  tucked 
away  from  the  comfort  in  the  grate,  —  the 
truth  was  that  he  had  primed  himself  for 
wickedness  in  Dixburn,  had  hung  around  and 
waited  for  temptation,  and  temptation  had 
not  come.  Instead  of  temptation  had  come  a 
chance  of  the  right  sort.  "  But  if  the  wrong 
sort  of  chance  had  come,"  Henderson  pointed 
out  to  his  soul,  with  that  pitilessly  keen  in- 
sight that  was  his,  —  "if  the  wrong  sort  had 
come,  and  I  had  profited  by  it  more  than  by 
the  one  hundred  and  fifty,  I  wonder,  0  my 
Soul,  if  you  would  be  whining  around  now 
like  an  abused  house-cat  ?  " 

He  tumbled  into  bed  a  few  minutes  later, 
glad  to  find  that  he  was  sleepy.  Before  he 
was  done  felicitating  himself  upon  that  fact 
he  sat  up,  staringly  awake.  "  If  I  don't  win 
out  here,"  he  said,  as  though  he  had  dragged 
up  a  large  conclusion  from  the  edge  of  the 
21 


HENDERSON 

land  of  dreams,  —  "  if  I  don't  win  out  here, 
I  '11  never  win  out.  It 's  now  or  never,  and 
I  don't  think  I  '11  ever  forget  how  she  looked 
there  in  that  doorway."  The  dying  gleam 
in  the  grate  shot  up  and  broke  into  small 
gaseous  bubbles  as  he  lay  back  on  his 
pillow. 

When  he  had  dressed  and  breakfasted, 
the  next  morning,  and  had  made  his  way  to 
the  street,  he  felt  immeasurably  better.  He 
sat  down  in  one  of  the  loafing-chairs  outside 
the  hotel  door,  and  smoked,  with  two  clearly 
defined  notions  in  his  head :  one  was  to  finish 
his  cigar,  and  the  other  was  to  beat  back 
along  that  car-track  to  the  house  whose 
door  had  opened  and  shut  in  front  of  him 
the  night  before.  Every  time  he  thought  of 
the  woman  who  had  stood  framed  in  that 
door,  he  found  his  determination  to  stay  in 
Penangton  strengthening.  He  was  very  near 
the  end  of  his  cigar,  and  very  near  the  be- 
ginning of  a  dream,  when  a  man  stopped  in 
front  of  him. 

22 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

"  Scrape  my  shins  if  't  ain't !  "  said  the 
man,  holding  out  his  hand.  The  big,  assert- 
ive voice  pushed  through  Henderson's  dream 
like  a  steam-roller,  and  bowled  him  back, 
willy-nilly,  to  the  medical  college,  Alden, 
and  the  Chicago  days. 

"  Oh,  you,  Thorley  ?  How  d'  you  do  ?  " 
Henderson's  greeting  was  slow,  but  it  had 
the  amiability  that  curls  off  the  end  of  a  good 
cigar,  and  he  got  up  and  shook  hands  with 
the  man,  whom  he  could  place  as  one  of  the 
fellows  of  the  '90  class.  He  had  not  seen 
Thorley  since  the  finish  in  April,  two  years 
and  more  before,  and  he  hardly  recognized 
him  because  of  the  bushy  side-whiskers  on 
his  face.  Still,  when  he  came  to  think  of  it, 
it  was  inevitable  that  Thorley  should  have 
sprung  those  whiskers.  One  never  saw  a 
man  with  his  kind  of  face  who  did  n't  sooner 
or  later  come  to  side-whiskers,  and  stop 
there  permanently.  All  that  Henderson 
immediately  recalled  about  him  was  that  he 
was  the  one  chap  at  college  who  did  n't  have 
23 


HENDERSON 

to  get  "used"  to  the  dissecting-room. 
Thorley  had  n't  sickened  or  blinked  from  the 
first.  And  that  odor  of  blood,  still  warm 
enough  to  run,  which  sorely  tried  every 
freshman's  stomach  in  the  operating-rooms, 
had  n't  bothered  Thorley  in  the  least.  He 
had  n't  even  noticed  it,  until  a  boy  in  front 
of  him  reeled,  and  had  to  be  swung  out  by 
his  shoulders  and  heels. 

"  Live  here  ?  "  asked  Henderson. 

"  Yes.  How  are  you  making  it  ?  "  Thorley 
laughed  a  good-natured,  rollicking  laugh  as 
soon  as  Henderson  opened  his  mouth  to 
reply.  "  Need  n't  to  tell  me.  About  eighteen 
of  the  twenty  in  the  '90  class  have  told  me 
already.  I  'm  making  it,"  he  rounded  off, 
with  a  dogged  down  jerk  of  his  head. 

"  How  ?  " 

"  Whiskey  cure." 

"Oh,  Lord!" 

"  And  morphine,"  went  on  Thorley,  un- 
touched. 

"What 's  your — your  cure  ?  "  Henderson 
24 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

smiled  down  at  Thorley  from  the  heights  of 
the  Code,  as  he  nicked  the  ash  from  his  cigar. 

"  Something  new.  It 's  a  serotherapy 
wrinkle." 

Henderson's  smile  became  a  deep-lunged 
laugh,  and  Thorley's  round  eyes  twinkled. 

"  Hair  of  the  dog  for  the  bite,"  Thorley 
insisted.  "  Only  mine  's  cows.  It 's  simple." 
His  eyes  fairly  danced.  "  Inoculate  a  cow 
with  alcohol ;  then  draw  off  the  serum  from 
the  cow's  blood,  and  use  as  an  antidote  for 
inebriety.  You  'd  be  surprised  at  the  way  it 
works,  Henderson." 

For  a  moment  Henderson  made  no  reply ; 
a  direct-  line  of  comparison  had  projected  it- 
self from  the  face  of  Thorley,  standing  there 
with  his  fat  neck  spilling  over  his  collar,  to 
the  face  of  Alden,  all  aglow  with  splendid 
dignity.  "You've  got  a  long  way  from 
Alden,"  he  demurred  at  last. 

"  Oh,  Alden  hell !  "  said  Thorley,  with  a 
short  laugh  which  stayed  good-natured. 
"  Alden's  wife  has  enough  money  for  him  to 
25 


HENDERSON 

live  on.  Mine  has  n't.  That 's  the  difference 
between  me  and  Alden."  He  rocked  back 
on  his  heels  easily.  "  Going  to  be  here  long  ?  " 
he  asked. 

"Maybe." 

"  I  tell  you  what  you  do,"  suggested  Thor- 
ley  quickly,  and  with  some  emphasis.  "  Come 
up  and  see  my  sanitarium.  And  say,  one  of 
these  days  I  '11  take  you  out  to  the  depot  and 
show  you  the  Thorley-Penryn  Serotherapy 
Stables,  where  we  draw  off  anti-alcoholic 
serum  for  alcoholism." 

"  Quack,  quack,  quack  !  "  laughed  Hen- 
derson ;  and  Thorley  went  off  with  his  own 
mouth  puckered. 

After  Thorley  had  left  him,  Henderson 
started  up  the  street  toward  the  Penryn 
house.  He  had  no  trouble  in  finding  it ;  but 
when  he  got  within  a  block  of  it  he  had 
trouble  in  accounting  for  its  being  there,  — 
in  Penangton.  It  was  so  much  of  a  castle 
that  while  it  had  ten  times  more  ground  than 

the  Chicago  castles,  it  still  did  n't  have  half 
26 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

ground  enough.  The  effect  was  not  good, 
"  though  it  would  be  if  there  were  two  miles 
of  park,"  thought  Henderson.  "  Now,  how 
did  she  ever  make  a  mistake  of  that  kind  ? 
Must  have  been  built  before  she  grew  up 
and  took  hold  of  things."  He  walked  on  a 
little  farther,  and  examined  the  house  more 
carefully.  "  It  was  built  before  she  grew  up 
and  took  hold  of  things,"  he  said  finally,  his 
eyes,  agile  as  squirrels,  running  up  and  down 
the  weather  marks  of  the  house.  He  felt 
immediately  relieved.  It  somehow  seemed 
to  him  very  important,  just  then,  that  that 
woman  should  not  fail  him  anywhere,  should 
come  quite  up  to  what  he  expected  of  her. 
Suddenly  he  decided  not  to  go  any  nearer 
the  house.  It  occurred  to  him  that  if  she 
should  see  him  loitering  about,  their  "  begin- 
ning "  might  be  cheapened.  He  made  a  de- 
tour around  the  house,  and  came  back  to  the 
main  street  a  block  above  it,  and  continued 
his  walk. 

He  took  that  walk  and  made  that  detour 
27 


HENDEESON 

every  day  for  a  week;  and  although  he 
never  got  a  glimpse  of  her,  he  refrained  from 
making  any  inquiries  about  her  at  the  hotel, 
from  the  same  fear  of  cheapening  their 
beginning.  During  that  week,  however,  he 
learned  incidentally  that  the  various  signs 
which  had  glared  him  out  of  countenance, 
the  night  of  his  arrival,  did  not  begin  to 
cover  all  of  the  Penryn  consequence  to  Pe- 
nangton.  Every  enterprise  in  the  town  or 
around  it  was  a  Penryn  enterprise,  and  the 
town  itself  was  thickly  coated  with  an  adula- 
tion of  Penryn  which  was  yet  not  thick 
enough  to  hide  its  deep  dislike  for  him. 

It  was  on  Tuesday  of  Henderson's  second 
week  of  the  old  business  of  waiting  for  busi- 
ness that  Thorley  came  into  the  hotel  and 
asked  for  him.  Thorley  had  that  concen- 
trated look  that  most  people  wear  when  they 
are  acting  under  a  rigid  determination  to 
bring  up  something  casually  before  they 
have  done  with  you. 

"  Suppose  you  come  up  and  take  a  look  at 
28 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

my  sanitarium  to-day,"  said  he,  early  in  the 
conversation.  "  Suppose  you  come  along 
now.  Wouldn't  you  care  to?  I'd  like  to 
show  you  over." 

They  went  down  the  street  together,  and 
Henderson  knew  that  Thorley  was  telling 
some  hard-luck  story  of  his  own  about  early 
struggles;  but  as  that  same  kind  of  story 
was  already  marked  across  Henderson's  mem- 
ory with  a  great  puckered  cicatrix  that 
pinched  every  nerve  in  him,  he  made  a  point 
of  not  listening,  until  Thorley  said,  "  There 
she  is,"  and  turned  his  fat  hand  on  his  wrist 
by  way  of  indicating  the  sanitarium.  It  was 
a  two-story  main  building  of  brick,  with 
frame  annexes  that  cluttered  it  up  like  an 
oversupply  of  white  wings.  The  main  build- 
ing was  well  out  toward  the  street,  and  had 
on  its  front  windows,  "  Serotherapy  Cure  for 
Alcoholism.  If  I  Don't  Cure  You,  You 
Don't  Pay  Me."  The  subtle,  half-sweet, 
half-cutting  odor  of  some  never  before 
smelled  drug  combination  assailed  Hender- 
29 


HENDERSON 

son  as  soon  as  he  was  inside.  He  sniffed  at 
it  curiously,  as  Thorley  led  the  way  into  a 
front  room,  which  seemed  to  be  an  office  be- 
cause of  the  desk  and  safe  in  it,  and  a  labor- 
atory because  of  the  long  vial-cabinet  against 
one  wall.  The  other  walls  were  hung  with 
what  looked  like  framed  certificates,  at  first 
glance,  but,  on  closer  inspection,  proved  to 
be  engrossed  letters,  all  beginning,  "My 
dear  Dr.  Thorley,"  and  all  ending,  "  Very 
gratefully  yours." 

"What's  that  I  smell,  Thorley?"  asked 
Henderson,  still  sniffing. 

"  That  ?   Oh,  that 's  my  secret." 

"You  ought  to  keep  your  secret  better 
bottled,  then,"  retorted  Henderson.  "It 
smells  to  heaven." 

"  Well,  now,"  said  Thorley,  sitting  down 
at  the  desk,  "  I  was  just  thinking  of  unbot- 
tling  it,  in  a  way.  Look  here,  Henderson, 
what's  lacking  about  you  that  you  useter 
have?  Tussle  been  too  devilish  hard  for 
you  ?  Sit  down  over  there,  —  sit  down.  You 
30 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

want  to  try  your  hand  at  something  't  ain't 
so  hard  ?  Something  that  '11  pay  ?  " 

"  Depends  on  the  something,"  smiled  Hen- 
derson, as  he  took  the  chair  pointed  out  to 
him. 

"  Oh  no,  it  don't,"  Thorley  answered  em- 
phatically. "  No,  it  don't.  You  can  just  bet 
your  life  on  that,  —  as  long  as  you  have  n't 
a  wife  with  the  money.  Let 's  make  a  long 
story  short,  Henderson.  What  I  want  to  tell 
you  is  this :  I  'm  making  a  go  of  this  show. 
I  guess  you  ain't  been  here  long  enough  to 
know  all  it  means  to  be  hitched  to  the  name 
of  Penryn  with  a  hyphen.  It 's  meaning  so 
much  that  I  can  hardly  keep  track  of  it.  I 
gotta  have  a  partner,  —  a  parlor  partner, 
Henderson.  Trouble  with  me  is,  I  'm  getting 
a  lot  of  people  in  here  that  I  can't  han'le. 
I  'm  plain  to  say  they  are  up  the  scale  from 
me  a  ways.  I  haveter  keep  my  mouth  shut 
just  for  fear  of  not  saying  the  right  thing. 
They  come  from  St.  Louis  and  Kansas  City 
and  round  about,  and  I  don't  go  with  'em. 
31 


HENDERSON 

'Specially  I  don't  go  with  the  women.  When 
you  add  morphine  jim-jams  to  women's  nat- 
ural fits  you  've  got  too  much  for  me,  Hen- 
derson. They  want  you  to  be  sympathetic, 
and  they're  afraid  you'll  be  fresh.  They 
keep  me  twirling.  The  fact  is,  I  gotta  have 
some  help." 

"  Count  me  out,  Thorley." 

"  Well,  now,  I  don't  see  why.  You  need 
n't  think  I  ain't  straight.  It's  all  legiti- 
mate. There  are  hundreds  of  places,  or  simi- 
lar, in  this  state  and  in  every  state  in  the 
Union." 

Thorley  glanced  up  at  Henderson,  and 
then  continued,  a  little  sheepishly :  "  They 
do  some  good.  My  medicine  is  a  sort  of  anti- 
dote, don't  care  what  you  say." 

"  I  guess  your  medicine  is  n't  the  serum, 
then.  I  guess  you  fall  back  on  the  muriate 
or  the  bichloride  a  little." 

"Keep  on  guessing,"  laughed  Thorley. 
"  Whatever  it  is,  it  helps  my  patients  to  stop, 
if  they  wanta  stop ;  it  helps  'em  get  'em- 
32 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

selves  back.  Say,  Henderson,  if  you  want 
the  truth,  I  got  just  one  qualm  of  conscience 
about  this  business.  The  patients  are  such 
a  damn  bad  lot  in  general,  I  feel  some  guilty 
about  helping  'em  to  get  'emselves  back. 
There  's  nothing  in  'em  worth  saving.  When 
you  fish  'em  up,  and  dry  'em  out,  and  put 
'em  on  their  feet,  you  feel  like  you  'd  played 
a  joke  on  'em." 

"  Thorley,  what  the  dickens  did  you  ever 
pick  out  a  missionary  business  for  ?  "  Hen- 
derson got  up,  frowning.  "  You  don't  care 
a  continental  about  giving  people  a  chance, 

yet—" 

"  Blue  blazes,  man,"  cried  Thorley,  "  it 's 
my  own  chance  I  'm  concerned  about,  —  not 
theirs !  See  here,  Henderson.  I  suppose  if 
I  were  a  damn  fool,  who  went  about  this 
thing  with  his  face  shining  and  his  lips 
twitching,  like  Alden,  you  'd  think  the  thing 
was  all  right,  and  that  I  was  all  right.  I 
know  the  enthusiasm  dodge ;  but  I  got  two 
eyes,  let  me  tell  you,  and  I  'm  none  the 
33 


HENDERSON 

worse  man  for  seeing  on  both  sides  and 
straight  to  the  bottom." 

"  You  are  the  worse  man,  though,  Thor- 
ley,  for  never  seeing  straight  to  the  top. 
Wall  your  eyes  up  a  little  once  in  a  way, 
and  you  might  get  still  another  view." 

When  Henderson  parted  from  Thorley, 
that  day,  he  went  home  directly  past  the 
Penryn  house.  He  felt  justified  in  it ;  and 
though  he  did  not  see  Miss  Penryn  about 
the  place,  a  fine  and  unsullied  glow  lasted 
him  all  the  way  to  the  hotel. 

After  that,  sustained  by  the  sense  of  justi- 
fication, he  walked  directly  past  the  house 
every  day.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  would 
have  to  find  out  more  about  her  soon,  whether 
the  "  beginning  "  were  to  be  cheapened  by 
his  inquiries  or  not.  The  amount  of  pleasure 
he  got  out  of  just  remembering  that  woman 
was  a  wonder  to  him,  and  the  hope  of  know- 
ing her  better  some  day  was  a  joy  and  a 
support  to  him.  From  the  sort  of  ivory 
frame,  rich  and  creamy,  in  which  memory 
34 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

had  placed  her,  Miss  Penryn  dominated  him, 
waking  or  sleeping. 

During  the  next  week  he  was  at  Thorley's 
a  number  of  times.  There  was  no  other  place 
to  go,  and  Mrs.  Thorley's  room,  with  its 
glowing  fire  and  cushioned  chairs,  was  invit- 
ing. It  was  up  there,  one  blustering  even- 
ing, that  Thorley  said  to  him  suddenly, 
"  Henderson,  I  wish  to  goodness  you  'd  quit 
your  hesitating,  and  come  on  in  here  with 
us." 

"  Why,  I  did  n't  know  that  I  was  hesitat- 
ing." 

Thorley  gave  a  peculiar  grunt,  and  then 
went  on,  as  though  some  things  were  too 
patent  to  be  talked  about :  "  You  seem  to 
think  it 's  wrong  for  me  to  do  a  little  good 
to  these  howling  hyenas  I  cage  up  here,  just 
because  I  do  myself  a  lot  more.  That 's  about 
the  size  of  your  argument.  Why,  my  prin- 
ciple is  the  principle  every  syndicate  and 
every  trust  fattens  on.  Do  somebody  else  a 
little  good,  and  do  yourself  a  lot  more.  It  'a 
35 


HENDERSON 

the  Penryn  principle,  —  and  look  at  Pen- 
ryn." 

"  And  look  at  this  bilious  town,"  replied 
Henderson.  "  It 's  jaundiced  with  Penryn- 
ism." 

"  Oh,  come  off  !  If  it  was  n't  for  Penryn, 
this  town  would  be  a  sand-bar  in  the  Mis- 
souri River.  It's  Penryn  that  worked  the 
railroad  in,  and  Penryn  that  got  the  elevators 
away  from  the  river,  where  the  grain-boats 
could  n't  come  no  more,  up  to  the  depot, 
where  trains  can  come.  It 's  Penryn  that  got 
the  mines  going,  and  Penryn  that 's  getting 
us  electricity  for  the  cars.  You  need  n't  tell 
me  that  kind  of  a  man  don't  deserve  credit. 
It 's  good  religion  to  call  him  a  cheat  and 
a  rascal,  and  I  guess  he 's  all  of  it ;  but  he 
does  things  that  other  people  get  the  benefit 
of,  no  matter  how  you  look  at  him." 

"  Has  Mr.  Penryn  any  children  ?  "  Irre- 
sistibly quick,  the  question  clipped  through 
the  barrier  of  the  careful  days  with  bullet- 
like  radicalism. 

36 


THE  DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

"  Lord,  yes.  Them  three  boys  at  the 
Bank  's  his." 

"  Any  daughters  ?  "  Henderson  sat  up 
straight,  to  let  the  questions  volley  as  they 
would. 

"  He  's  got  a  daughter." 

"  Is  she  here  ?  "  This  close  to  that  woman 
again,  this  close  to  her  name  even,  she  seemed 
to  step  down  from  her  frame  and  to  come 
toward  him,  richly  alive,  with  all  the  promis- 
ing significance  she  had  had  for  him  that 
first  evening.  There  had  been  nothing  in 
his  life  more  foolish  than  that  woman's  effect 
upon  him,  and  nothing  more  vital.  He  was 
trembling  as  he  waited  for  Thorley's  an- 
swer. 

"  Is  she  here  now,  Zu  ?  "  called  Thorley 
to  his  wife,  who  was  bending  over  some 
knitting,  close  to  the  lamp.  "  She 's  not  here 
much  any  more."  Thorley  raised  his  voice 
and  called  again,  "  Zu,  is  Mrs.  Shore  here 
now?" 

"  Purl  one,  two  —  wait  a  minute  —  purl 
37 


HENDERSON 

two  —  that 's  it.  Why,  yes,  she  was  to  come 
in  on  the  night  train.  She  did  n't  make  out 
her  visit  to  her  father  when  she  stopped  on 
her  way  up  from  St.  Louis  a  week  ago,  be- 
cause her  husband  came  down  from  K.  C. 
for  her  next  day.  He  's  that  spoiled  about 
her.  So  now  she  's  down  again  for  a  few 
days." 

"  Where  'd  you  ever  meet  her  ?  "  asked 
Thorley.  It  was  strangely  as  it  should  be 
that  Thorley's  emphasis  unconsciously  put 
that  woman  on  a  pedestal,  high  and  white. 

"  Why,"  said  Henderson,  like  a  man  in  a 
fog,  "  somewhere  —  a  long  way  from  here 
—  if  she  is  the  woman  I  think  she  is.  What 
does  she  look  like  ?  " 

"  Queen.  And  she  rules,  let  me  tell  you. 
She  's  the  one  person  living  who  's  been  too 
much  for  Lowry  Penryn.  They  say  this  town 
owes  a  good  deal  to  her."  Thorley  chuckled 
as  he  continued  :  "  They  say  she 's  headed 
Lowry  off  a  time  or  two."  He  put  his  clumsy 
thumbs  together  and  leaned  toward  Hender- 
38 


THE   DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

son  a  little.  "  Say,  Henderson,  I  don't  mind 
telling  you  that  Penryn  's  agreed  to  back  me 
a  long  way  further  on  the  serum.  We  are 
going  to  buy  Al  Hickam's  farm,  down 
Weaver  Road,  for  the  cows,  and  we  are  going 
to  work  the  cure  for  all  there  is  in  it.  And 
there's  plenty  in  it." 

"  So."  The  word  clumped  at  Henderson's 
ears  heavily,  without  interrogation  and  full 
of  finish.  "That's  good." 

He  recognized  that  what  Thorley  had  just 
been  telling  him  had  set  him  fairly  back  in 
the  old-clothes  Dixburn  period,  without  any 
of  the  bitter  vigor  and  combativeness  of 
that  period.  In  two  seconds  he  had  become 
as  pallid  and  anaemic,  as  unable  to  fight  for 
his  ideal,  and  as  little  desirous  of  fighting,  as 
though  Alden  had  never  existed,  as  though 
that  woman  in  the  frame  had  never  existed. 
She  had  n't  ever  existed.  That  was  the  worst 
of  it.  He  knew  what  Thorley  was  going  to 
say  next,  and  as  he  picked  up  his  hat  and 
coat  his  answer  stood  out  in  his  mind  with 
39 


HENDERSON 

great  clearness.  It  was  about  the  only  clear 
thing  in  his  mind.  He  was  going  to  accept 
Thorley's  offer.  That  was  all  there  was  to 
it.  Nothing  could  be  simpler.  His  upper  lip 
strained  back  from  the  simplicity  of  it,  and 
his  nostrils  widened  fastidiously  to  let  the 
simplicity  of  it  down  his  dry  throat.  The 
next  thing  was  Thorley's  voice  :  — 

"  Tell  you  what  I  '11  do,  Henderson  :  I  '11 
guarantee  you  three  thousand  for  the  first 
year.  After  that  there  will  be  five,  and  after 
that  ten,  if  there  's  a  cent.  And  there 's 
always  a  cent  in  a  Penryn  deal.  Will  you 
take  it?" 

"  No,"  said  Henderson.  That  was  simple, 
too ;  but  his  mind,  crouched  low  to  receive 
the  expected  blow,  lumbered  through  a  good 
half  minute  as  though  the  blow  had  really 
fallen.  Then  he  put  on  his  hat,  said  good- 
by  to  the  Thorleys  and  went  down  the 
steps,  all  his  nerves  alive  again,  and  flashing 
jubilant  notice  to  his  brain  that  he  had  n't 
been  able  to  get  down  to  that  lower  plane 
40 


THE   DIFFICULT  MINUTE 

even  when  he  had  wanted  to ;  that  he  had 
underrated  the  protective  value  of  his  ideals, 
had  underrated  himself  there  in  Dixburn. 
He  might  have  trusted  himself  then,  as  he 
could  trust  himself  now,  to  hold  out  for  the 
right  sort  of  finish,  as  right  went  with  him. 
He  was  bound  to  do  it.  He  could  n't  do 
anything  else.  "  That 's  the  good  thing 
about  it,"  he  told  himself.  "  Could  n't  strike 
that  gait  even  when  I  wanted  to.  Lord, 
Alden,  it  was  a  precious  leaven  you  gave 
me."  He  deliberately  stopped  on  the  street 
and  hugged  himself.  "  It 's  bound  to  keep 
you  quick,  you  old  lump,"  he  said.  Then,  as 
he  was  opposite  the  Penryn  house,  he  looked 
over  that  way.  The  shades  were  not  drawn 
hi  a  book-filled  room  on  the  lower  floor  and 
through  the  street  window  he  could  see  the 
warm  red  glow  in  which  the  room  lay.  As 
he  stood  looking,  his  arms  folded,  his  head 
high,  his  face  still  keen  with  the  stress  of 
the  minute  he  had  just  lived  through,  a 
woman  came  into  the  room  and  stopped 
41 


HENDEESON 

before  the  fire,  her  hands  clasped  behind 
her.  Her  tall  form  and  the  delicate  contour 
of  her  face  were  silhouetted  distinctly  for 
Henderson.  Presently,  with  a  little  startled 
movement,  as  though  she  felt  what  she  could 
not  see,  she  stepped  to  the  window  and  drew 
the  shade  close. 

On  the  outside  Henderson  took  up  his 
homeward  journey  with  long  swift  steps. 

"  And  I  guess  I  've  got  to  learn  to  stand 
remembering,"  he  told  himself  quietly. 


42 


n 

THE  LIFE  ON  THE  TABLE 

FIRST  Shore  heard  the  clock  tick;  then  a 
bird  on  a  telephone-wire  shrilled  a  glad  note 
at  the  spring  sunshine;  then  the  clock 
ticked ;  then  his  child  in  the  nursery  above 
laughed  happily;  then  the  clock  ticked; 
then  a  man  with  small  square  boxes  in  his 
hands  called  from  the  middle  of  Independ- 
ence Avenue,  "  Berr-wizz !  berr-wizz  !  "  then 
the  clock  ticked  ;  then  the  car  at  the  corner 
dragged  its  cable  with  an  ugly,  snarling 
noise ;  then  the  clock  ticked  — 

"  Good  God,  Henderson !  "  he  cried  from 
his  rocker  to  the  man  in  the  swivel-chair, 
"  will  you  stop  that  clock  !  "  He  raised  a 
closely  bandaged  arm  with  an  impatient  jerk 
that  made  him  wince  with  pain.  His  free 
hand  was  trembling,  and  there  was  a  close, 
fi^e  perspiration  on  his  face ;  yet  almost 
43 


HENDERSON 

instantly  he  took  up  the  clock's  rhythm 
half  laughingly.  "  Thump-her-in,"  he  said, 
"  thump-her-in ;  no-time-to-lose  ;  got-to-die- 
young.  Lynn,  you  've  heen  a  good  wife  to 
me,  but  if  you  ever  huy  another  clock  that 
ticks-ticks-ticks,  I  '11  divorce  you  sure."  He 
got  up  and  crossed  over  to  the  open  window, 
where  a  woman  was  standing.  He  put  his 
arm  over  her  shoulder  and  pushed  aside  the 
lace  curtain,  shrank  strangely  from  the  sun- 
shine and  the  woman,  and  came  back  to  his 
seat  with  a  little  hysterical  gulp. 

"  It 's  leaving  you,"  he  said  to  the  woman. 
He  had  slouched  his  huge  body  down  into 
the  chair,  and  his  head  lay  back  heavily. 
"  That 's  the  thing  that  floors  me,  the  only 
thing.  —  Oh,  hell,  I  'm  lying  !  It 's  the  big 
thing,  but 't  is  n't  the  only  thing."  Again 
he  got  up,  restless  as  a  chained  wolf,  and 
came  over  to  her.  "  Look  at  that  sunshine  j 
look  at  the  size  of  this  house;  look  how 
thick  our  carpets  are ;  look  what  a  beef  I 
am  !  It 's  got  no  business  to  turn  out  like 
44 


THE   LIFE   ON  THE  TABLE 

this.  I  'm  not  half  through.  It  ought  n't  to 
be,  it  shan't  be."  He  dropped  into  the 
chair  at  the  window,  and  began  to  choke  in 
his  slow,  sobbing  breath,  and  the  woman 
turned  her  face  to  him. 

"  Risk  it,  Hard,"  she  said.  "  Why  don't 
you  ?  You  must.  Is  n't  it  a  chance  ?  Risk 
it."  Her  voice  rocked  like  a  bounding  wire 
under  its  weight  of  doubt  and  hope.  It  went 
crazily  from  command  to  question,  and  she 
seemed  swung  far  out  on  it  over  some  abys- 
mal gulf  of  perplexity.  Once  she  turned 
toward  the  man  in  the  swivel-chair,  with  a 
wild  strain  on  her  face ;  but  he  was  not 
looking  at  her,  and  she  turned  back  to  the 
window  quickly. 

Again  the  other  man  regained  his  self- 
control  with  one  of  his  crinkled-up  chuckles ; 
he  put  up  his  hand  and  held  to  the  woman's 
arm.  "  Don't  you  get  cross  with  your  baby, 
whatever  you  do,"  he  said,  looking  up  at 
her  with  a  deep  and  tender  adoration.  He 
pressed  his  hand  lovingly  into  the  firm  arm 
45 


HENDEKSON 

and  pulled  up  by  her.  "  Risk  it  ?  Risk 
this  ?  Oh,  life,  life ! "  he  cried,  with  his 
head  bent  down  to  hers.  Then  he  lifted  her 
strained  face  and  made  her  look  out  of  the 
window.  "  That  town  yonder,  —  see  it  ?  It 
needs  me.  I  'm  predestined  to  make  it  a 
bloomin'  good  mayor,  one  of  these  days. 
It  '11  miss  me.  It  may  do  for  me  to  run  the 
risk,  but  what  about  the  town  ?  D'  you 
think  Kansas  City  can  afford  to  risk  me  ?  " 
The  self-appreciation  seemed  appropriate 
rather  than  uncouth,  casual  rather  than  con- 
spicuous. He  was  so  virile,  so  big  and  co- 
ercive, that  it  would  have  been  a  pity  for 
him  not  to  appreciate  himself. 

"  If  I  risk  you,  if  I  'm  willing  to,"  began 
the  woman,  dropping  the  curtain  between 
them  and  the  city,  — "  if  I  risk  you,  the 
town  can,  and  you  can  risk  the  town."  Her 
eyes  were  keen  and  dry,  and  she  held  him  a 
little  away  from  her,  with  her  hands  on  his 
shoulders. 

A  sort  of  shining  joy  came  out  on  the 
46 


THE  LIFE  ON  THE  TABLE 

man's  face  at  her  words,  and  he  clung  to 
the  suggestion  in  them  hungrily.  "  Do  you 
mean  that,  all  of  it  ?"  he  asked.  "  You  old 
darling,  why  don't  you  speak  the  language 
oftener  ? "  The  wonder  and  the  humility 
which  must  have  been  his  when  he  first  won 
her  were  manifest  in  his  face  and  in  his 
voice.  He  had  got  used  to  everything  else, 
to  a  good  degree  of  local  fame  and  to  for- 
tune, but  he  had  not  got  used  to  her.  To  an 
onlooker  he  was  half  pathetic,  toppling  as 
he  did  with  his  great  weight  toward  her; 
and  she  was  half  minatory,  —  it  looked  so 
easy  for  her,  in  her  lithe  and  pliable  youth, 
to  bend  aside  and  fail  him. 

The  man  in  the  swivel-chair  had  thus  far 
kept  up  a  ceaseless  tattoo  with  his  thumb- 
nail against  his  teeth.  When  finally  he 
stopped  the  tattoo,  it  was  to  throw  his 
arms  back  and  pound  on  his  chest  once  or 
twice. 

"  I  guess  you  are  wondering  about  now 
why  I  dragged  you  up  from  Penan  gton  to 
47 


HENDERSON 

pass  on  me,  Henderson,"  called  the  man  at 
the  window,  with  some  appreciation  of  the 
other's  impatience,  "  long  as  I  ain't  taking 
your  word  for  the  final  word  very  fast ;  but 
I  tell  you  what,  old  man,  you  Ve  disap- 
pointed me  for  fair.  I  thought  you  'd  have 
good  taste  enough  to  agree  with  me,  and  let 
diagnosis  go  hang.  I  knew  you  weren't 
sensational,  and  I  expected  you  to  say  that 
the  other  chaps  were  on  the  wrong  tack; 
but  I  '11  be  doggoned  if  you  are  n't  proving 
up  the  bloodthirstiest  of  the  lot.  What  the 
dickens  you  got  against  me,  my  friend  — 
what  you  got  against  me  ?  "  He  could  talk 
foolishness  with  a  whimsical  assumption  of 
gravity,  and  his  wide,  handsome  face  now 
mocked  Henderson  with  unsmiling  interro- 
gation. 

Henderson  wondered  afterward  just  what 
pathological  change  his  own  brain  presented 
after  that  witless  question  had  cut  its  way  in 
and  out.  He  began  to  beat  his  hands  to- 
gether softly  and  to  talk  rapidly,  in  the  way 
48 


he  had  when  he  wished  he  did  n't  have  to 
talk  at  all :  — 

"  What  I  got  against  you,  Shore,  is  your 
symptoms.  I  wish  I  could  unsay  what  I  've 
said,  or  put  a  little  sweetening  in  it,  but  I 
can't  do  it.  The  last  time  I  talked  with  you 
in  my  own  office  in  Penangton  I  got  afraid 
that  Lahn  and  Carey  had  your  case  down 
about  right,  and  now  I  know  it.  At  least  I 
know  that  lump  on  your  wrist  is  too  near  to 
being  a  spindle-celled  sarcoma  for  you  to 
fool  away  any  more  time  on  neat  little  com- 
presses and  quiet  little  rest-cures  ;  the  thing 
for  you  now  is  a  sharp  little  knife.  If  you 
don't  take  that  thing  in  time,  —  and  the 
time 's  now,  —  you  might  as  well  shut  up 
that  real-estate  office  of  yours  at  once  and 
be  done  with  it.  All  the  real  estate  you  '11 
need  will  be  a  bunch  six  feet  long  by  two 
wide"  —  Henderson  stopped  abruptly,  un- 
able to  get  the  right  hold  on  this  line  of 
talk;  the  things  he  usually  said  to  people 
whose  lives  were  in  danger  and  whom  his 
49 


knife  might  save  were  not  coming  to  his 
mind  readily,  and  were  not  fitting  the  situa- 
tion when  they  did  come.  The  jokes  on 
which  he  was  accustomed  to  ride  his  patients 
into  an  easy  familiarity  with  danger  seemed 
unable  to  bear  the  weight  of  the  big  man  in 
front  of  him. 

Henderson  did  not  look  at  the  woman, 
but  he  got  a  sensation  that  she  understood, 
and  that  she  was  doing  what  she  could  to 
make  it  easier  on  him  when  she  said  :  "  Har- 
din,  the  time  's  gone  by  for  talking ;  the 
time  's  going  by  for  acting.  You  must  stop 
this  foolishness.  The  operation  itself  might 
be  much  more  serious :  you  have  as  good 
a  chance  as  anybody  to  rally  from  it."  She 
pushed  him  back  into  a  chair,  and  stood 
over  him  with  a  strong,  maternal  protection, 
for  all  he  was  so  big  and  stalwart,  and  she 
was  so  straight  and  slender.  "He  has  as 
good  a  chance  as  anybody,  hasn't  he?" 
She  looked  at  Henderson  with  the  earnest 
concentration  in  her  eyes  that  was  always  in 
50 


THE   LIFE   ON  THE  TABLE 

them,  like  unused,  expectant  lightning,  when 
she  looked  squarely  at  him. 

"  With  the  right  operator  he  has,"  an- 
swered Henderson,  and  wondered  what  she 
thought  he  meant  by  that. 

She  was  urging  on  the  man  in  the  chair 
again,  as  though  she  had  not  heard  Hender- 
son :  "  Say  you  will  risk  the  operation,  — 
say  you  will." 

Her  husband  buried  his  face  against  her, 
and  gave  up  the  fight  with  an  awkward, 
gigantic  helplessness.  "  Why  need  I,  when 
you're  saying  it,  boss?  You  hear,  don't 
you,  Henderson  ?  I  'm  to  risk  it."  The  wo- 
man pulled  quickly  away  from  him,  with  an 
expression  of  relief  that  remained  perplexed, 
and  the  big  man  rose  to  his  feet.  "  But 
there's  one  thing  I  want  your  lily-white 
hand  on,  Henderson,"  he  continued  banter- 
ingly.  "  You  got  to  promise  that  you  '11  do 
every  bit  of  the  work  yourself."  Through 
his  banter  ran  the  important,  well-fed  man's 
jealousy  about  himself.  Now  that  it  was 
51 


HENDERSON 

coming  to  the  pinch,  he  plainly  did  n't  like 
the  idea  of  being  subjected  to  handling 
and  analysis  that  would  be  purely  scientific, 
purely  impersonal ;  he  even  had  a  supersti- 
tious feeling  that  such  a  dry  valuation  of 
life  was  likely  to  invoke  death.  His  person- 
ality had  always  meant  a  great  deal  to  him, 
and  he  shrank  outspokenly  from  being  viewed 
as  material  instead  of  as  Hardin  Shore,  rich, 
fate-conquering.  "  Life  means  a  heap  to 
me,"  he  went  on  insistently,  "and  I  ain't 
putting  it  into  the  hands  of  anybody  but 
the  chap  I  can  trust,  the  chap  that  knows 
what  and  how  much  I  have  to  h've  for,"  — 
he  held  out  his  hand  toward  the  woman,  but 
she  stood  quietly  back  beyond  his  reach, 
smiling  at  him ;  —  "  and  I  'm  going  to  put 
the  whole  business  into  your  hands,  Hender- 
son. I  'm  going  to  be  yours  to  bind  or  to 
loose,  as  you  will  and  can.  Understand? 
Will  you  do  the  work  yourself  ?  " 

Henderson  turned  nervously  from  the  un- 
reasoning sentiment  of  patient  toward  physi- 
52 


THE   LIFE   ON   THE   TABLE 

clan  which,  in  its  helpless  emotionalism,  so 
saddles  a  man  with  responsibility.  He  shook 
his  head  vehemently.  "  No,  no !  "  he  said. 
"  Let  Lahn  operate.  He 's  the  one.  He 's 
the  very  best  here.  Why,  Shore,  I  'm  only 
a  country  surgeon,  at  most.  Let  Lahn.  I 
can't  do  it — I  can't  operate  on  you  —  I  can't 
take  your  life  into  my  hands  —  I  don't  want 
to  —  " 

"  All  right,  sir,"  —  the  other  man  held  up 
his  afflicted  hand  by  way  of  unpromising 
emphasis,  —  "  all  right.  You  see,  don't  you, 
Lynn  ?  Shows  how  much  he  believes  in  it. 
You  won't  operate,  eh?  All  right.  One 
thing  for  sure,  nobody  else  shall." 

The  woman  put  her  hand  on  Henderson's 
arm.  "What  do  you  mean  by  hesitating 
now  ?  "  she  asked  imperiously.  "  What  do 
you  mean?  Why,  we  trust  you.  You  can 
trust  yourself.  It 's  the  only  way.  You  must 
trust  yourself.  I  'm  not  afraid ;  Hardin  is  n't. 
Should  you  be  ?  Why,  I  Ve  had  so  much 
trouble  to  get  him  even  to  consider  it.  He 
53 


HENDERSON 

never  would  have,  if  it  had  n't  been  for  you. 
He  believes  in  you.  Every  fibre  of  chance 
he  has  hangs  from  you." 

Henderson  looked  down  at  her  grimly. 
"  You  know  I  like  responsibility,"  he  said. 
"  Pile  it  on."  Then,  with  a  violent  splinter- 
ing of  his  thought,  he  cried  wildly :  "  I  tell 
you  I  'm  afraid  of  myself !  His  life  means 
too  much,  to  you,  to  himself,  to  hundreds  of 
people  —  to  me  —  " 

"  I  can't  help  that,"  she  persisted,  as  ar- 
dent as  he.  "  You  've  got  to  go  all  the  way. 
You  can't  refuse,  you  can't  turn  back  now ; 
you  dare  not." 

The  same  tragic  mixture  of  pleading  and 
command  was  in  her  voice  again,  making 
her  half-admonitory  angel,  half-tearful  wo- 
man, and  her  face  was  becoming  so  tense 
that  her  husband  came  quickly  to  the  rescue 
with  his  ready  capacity  for  forging  a  finish 
to  anything  which  he  had  thought  worth 
beginning. 

"  Henderson,  I  may  have  a  spindle-shanked 
54 


THE   LIFE   ON   THE   TABLE 

sarcoma  in  my  hand,  but  you've  got  one  in 
your  head.  'T  is  n't  normal  for  a  surgeon  to 
have  to  be  coaxed  to  operate.  Responsibility 
nothing !  I  '11  take  the  responsibility.  Will 
you  operate  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  yes,"  said  Henderson  wearily. 

"  That 's  better.  Why,  man  alive,  you  've 
made  me  feel  that  my  old  arm  can't  put  up 
a  real  interesting  case  for  you  on  the  table. 
Go  'way ;  I  '11  get  you  in  a  box  yet  before 
you  're  through  with  me." 

He  was  deliberately  talking  and  laughing 
himself  out  of  his  first  hysterical  antipathy 
to  the  operation  into  his  usual  orderly  good 
nature.  His  big,  powerful  shoulders  had 
squared  back,  and  the  danger  he  was  about 
to  brave  was  passing  from  a  great  potential 
tragedy  —  the  tragedy  of  risking  life  when 
life  means  wealth,  power,  happiness  —  into 
the  flat,  every-day  fact  that  he  was  going  to 
be  operated  on,  going  to  take  some  chloro- 
form, and  going  to  get  off  the  operating-table 
and  go  about  his  business  again. 
55 


HENDERSON 

"  Now  the  question  is,  when  ?  "  he  asked 
next,  with  the  peremptory  manner  of  a  man 
who  is  accustomed  to  run  his  affairs  on 
schedule  time. 

The  woman  looked  at  Henderson  smil- 
ingly. "  It 's  fine  to  have  him  good  at  last, 
isn't  it?"  she  said.  "Better  not  give  him 
time  to  undergo  any  sea-change.  I  suppose 
you  want  to  get  hack  to  Penangton,  too, 
just  as  soon  as  you  can  ?  " 

Henderson  furrowed  a  long  straight  line 
in  the  carpet,  between  himself  and  the  two 
opposite  him,  before  he  answered.  "  If  you 
insist  upon  leaving  it  to  me,  I  '11  arrange  to 
get  you  into  Miss  Maguire's  Surgical  Sana- 
torium to-morrow,  and  I  '11  operate  the  day 
after,  or  the  day  after  that.  No  use  to  sleep 
long  on  the  matter.  If  we  are  going  to  enter 
the  lists,  the  sooner  we  do  it  the  better." 
His  pleasure,  as  he  again  got  hold  of  that 
old  ability  of  his  to  handle  himself,  to  catch 
step  with  fate  and  go  marching  on,  lit  up 
his  face  like  a  streak  of  pallid  dawn.  During 
56 


THE  LIFE   ON  THE   TABLE 

the  last  year  of  his  life,  ever  since  he  had 
met  the  woman  before  him,  he  had  required 
and  obtained  a  great  deal  of  himself,  had 
put  himself  in  the  way  of  a  good  many  crises, 
and  had  never  yet  failed  himself ;  but  the 
last  time  he  had  lived  through  a  sight  of  her 
husband's  affection  for  her,  the  last  time  he 
had  blistered  in  the  warmth  of  the  husband's 
friendship  for  him,  he  had  promised  himself 
that  he  would  keep  away  from  crises  in 
future.  Still,  here  he  was,  in  their  house 
again,  at  their  invitation,  their  entreaty,  and 
forced  to  stand  there  before  them  with  the 
delicate  scales  of  life  and  death  in  his  un- 
willing hand.  Henderson's  life  as  physician 
and  surgeon  had  not  been  a  quiet  or  an  easy 
one,  and  before  this  he  had  had  occasion 
to  wish  that  a  few  respectable  trials,  "like 
death,"  he  would  say,  might  enter  into  his 
experience.  His  trials  had  been  such  tiger 
trials ;  their  claws  had  dug  so  deep  into  his 
sensitiveness.  It  was  not  a  small  thing  for 
a  man  with  Henderson's  capacity  for  suffer- 
57 


HENDERSON 

ing  to  be  able  to  "  handle  himself,"  and  it 
was  no  great  wonder  that  he  took  an  un- 
thawed,  frosty  pleasure  in  it. 

"  So,  then,  Shore,"  he  concluded  capably, 
"  the  thing  for  me  to  do  is  to  corral  Lahn 
and  Carey  and  MacWhirr,  and  have  them 
with  me  to  see  that  you  get  a  fighting 
chance,  and  the  rest  we  '11  have  to  leave  to 
your  lucky  star."  He  laughed  wholesomely 
now,  a  surgeon's  confidence  -  inspiring 
laugh. 

"  Now  you  are  talking  sense,"  said  the  big 
man  cordially.  He  moved  over  to  the  open 
fire  beside  the  woman  and  put  his  well  arm 
about  her,  crumpling  her  to  him  with  his  big 
masculine  strength,  while  Henderson  stood 
there  facing  the  two.  Then  suddenly  Shore, 
glad  in  the  relaxation  of  having  his  physical 
problem  settled,  glad  in  his  wife,  glad  in  his 
friend,  held  out  his  hand  in  his  good  way. 
And  Henderson  was  able  to  take  the  hand, 
his  eyes  staying  on  Shore's  eyes,  not  seeking 
hers  for  a  flying  second.  Yet  some  electric 
58 


THE  LIFE   ON  THE   TABLE 

circuit  was  completed  as  the  three  stood  in 
that  close  companionship,  and  somehow  he 
knew  that  she  understood  how  it  was  with 
him ;  and  somehow  he  was  glad  to  have  her 
know. 

Then  instantly  she  showed  that  she  had 
everything  in  hand  and  would  be  able,  with  a 
peerless  justice,  to  help  him  get  the  most  out 
of  himself,  so  that  he  might  stand  unshaken 
on  the  heights  of  a  rare  friendship. 

"  Yes,  now  we  must  all  talk  sense,"  she 
said,  taking  up  her  husband's  word  lightly ; 
"  now  we  must  all  set  our  faces  steadily 
toward  the  task  in  hand." 

"  Steadily  toward  the  task  in  hand,"  re- 
peated Henderson,  his  eyes  on  hers  at  last. 

As  he  said  it,  he  knew  that  the  stinging 
agony  of  saying  it,  the  still  strange  triumph 
of  saying  it,  would  forever  abide  with  him. 

"All  right,  sir,"  interposed  Shore,  still 

gripping  Henderson's  hand ;  "  and  operation 

being  the  task  in  hand,  this  is  your  affair 

from  now  on ;  I  'm  not  concerned  in  it  any 

59 


HENDERSON 

farther.  But  see  here,  I  tell  you  what  I  am 
concerned  in  :  I  Ve  a  deal  on  with  a  railroad 
for  to-day.  I  need  just  one  last  hour  at  the 
office.  I  can  go,  can't  I  ?  'T  won't  hurt  if  I 
take  the  carriage,  will  it  ?  "  He  seemed  will- 
ing to  turn  authority  over  to  his  physician, 
but  unable,  from  long  authoritative  habit,  to 
do  so.  He  began  every  sentence  as  an  asser- 
tion, and  the  question  only  curled  in  lamely 
as  an  afterthought.  When  Henderson  had 
given  him  a  niggardly  consent  to  do  what  he 
was  going  to  do  anyhow,  Shore  turned  from 
his  wife  to  the  door.  He  came  back,  with 
his  hat  in  his  hand,  a  moment  later,  and 
shook  his  finger  at  her.  "You  are  a  nice 
lot,  you  two,"  he  said.  "  I  hope  you  are 
satisfied,  but  I  doubt  it.  I  doubt  you  '11  be 
satisfied  till  you  get  that  chloroform-cap  over 
my  nose  —  "  He  left  off  suddenly  because 
of  the  look  on  his  wife's  face.  She  put  her 
hand  to  her  mouth  in  an  unavailing  effort  to 
push  back  a  short,  sharp  scream. 

"  You,  Hardin !  "  she  cried ;   and  when 
60 


THE  LIFE  ON  THE  TABLE 

he  had  come  to  her  and  had  taken  her  into 
his  arms,  she  laughed  and  trembled,  and 
rubbed  her  face  against  his  with  a  clinging, 
forgiving  reproach.  "  What  do  you  say 
things  like  that  for  ?  You  must  n't.  It  is  n't 
so  easy  for  anybody  concerned  that  you  need 
make  it  harder." 

Her  bosom  kept  heaving  in  a  broken,  help- 
less way  even  after  he  had  gone  out  of  the 
house  to  his  carriage,  and  Henderson  held 
his  eyes  away  from  her  while  she  stood  at  the 
window  trying  to  regain  her  composure,  and 
talked  to  her  lightly  of  Penangton,  the  little 
Missouri  town  that  was  now  his  home,  and 
that  had  once  been  hers. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  he  said.  "  You  have  n't  been 
coming  down  to  Penangton  often  enough 
lately,  and  the  calacanthus  bush  in  Mrs. 
Thorley's  yard  is  'way  ahead  of  yours.  Its 
buds  have  popped." 

She  swayed  abstractedly  with  the  cur- 
tain, to  which  she  was  holding,  and  against 
which  her  head  was  pressed.  "I  know  I 
•  61 


HENDERSON 

haven't.  I  suppose  Pete  forgets  to  dig 
around  my  bushes?  I  haven't  been  down 
all  spring." 

"  Mmmh  !  I  guess  I  know  that."  Hender- 
son whistled  softly,  and  went  and  stood  by 
the  other  window.  "  Why  have  n't  you  come 
down?" 

"  Oh  —  I  don't  believe  I  know.  Hardin, 
I  expect.  I  get  uneasy  if  he  is  out  of  my 
sight."  She  held  her  curtain  back  suddenly, 
and  looked  sharply  at  Henderson.  "  What 's 
the  real  danger  ?  "  she  asked.  "  Other  peo- 
ple come  through  all  right.  What 's  the  real 
danger  with  Hard  ?  There  's  something  spe- 
cial, is  n't  there  ?  What  is  it  ?  " 

If  there  was  one  thing  that  Henderson 
was  coming  to  hate  more  than  another,  in 
his  business  of  being  the  doctor,  it  was  the 
constant  metamorphosis  of  him  from  man 
into  physician  that  went  on  under  his  very 
nose,  and  that  he  was  powerless  to  prevent. 
People  were  eternally  demanding  it  of  him, 
and  he  was  eternally  meeting  the  demand, 
62 


THE   LIFE   ON  THE   TABLE 

involuntarily,  like  clockwork.  A  man  had 
spoken  to  her,  from  behind  a  curtain,  a 
moment  before ;  a  physician  pushed  the 
curtain  back,  as  she  had  pushed  hers  back, 
and  his  answer  was  as  straight  and  sharp  as 
her  question  :  "  The  real  trouble  with  Hard 
is  the  big  physical  hold  he  has  on  life.  It 's 
one  of  those  foolish  paradoxes  that  are  true. 
It 's  like  this :  Hard  is  so  everlastingly  alive, 
and  there 's  so  much  of  him  to  be  alive,  that 
he  is  bound  to  feel  a  physical  shock  more, 
and  to  smash  down  harder,  than  a  wiry,  ner- 
vous man  would.  I  Ve  got  to  knock  his  feet 
right  from  under  him ;  and  it 's  his  feet  that 
Hard  stands  on  rather  more  than  the  next 
man.  I  guess  I  ought  to  tell  you  frankly 
that  there  '11  be  trouble  if  I  can't  put  the 
operation  through  in  a  rush.  But  I  will  put 
it  through  that  way.  And  he  '11  rally."  Hen- 
derson stepped  back  behind  his  curtain  and 
drummed  on  the  window.  "  He 's  got  to 
rally." 

The  woman  moved  back  behind  her  cur- 
63 


HENDERSON 

tain,  too.  The  lines  of  perplexity,  confidence, 
anxiety,  and  admiration  that  had  been  on  her 
face  all  the  morning  became  more  strongly 
marked.  "  It  has  awful  responsibilities,  sur- 
gery, hasn't  it?"  she  said  slowly. 

"  Yes,  awful,"  answered  the  man  behind 
the  curtain. 

Three  men,  in  white  duck  aprons,  short 
duck  jackets,  and  close  white  caps,  stood  in 
one  corner  of  a  large  light  room  and  talked 
comfortably,  calling  each  other  by  their  un- 
titled  surnames  with  the  relief  of  men  who 
know  what  it  is  to  have  a  title  eat  up  indi- 
viduality. They  were  men  of  widely  different 
personalities  and  unlike  appearances :  Mac- 
Whirr,  the  Scot ;  Lahn,  German  to  the  last 
drop  of  blood;  and  Carey  from  Kentucky. 
But  for  all  their  dissimilarity,  on  the  face 
of  each  was  an  expression  so  dominant  that 
the  three  looked  like  brothers.  It  was  the 
eager  stress  of  men  who  have  the  same  life- 
work,  appealing  to  them  in  the  same  degree 
64 


THE   LIFE   ON   THE   TABLE 

as  important  and  interesting,  who  find  them- 
selves face  to  face  with  an  opportunity  for 
the  work,  and  who  are  glad  of  the  oppor- 
tunity. The  pulses  of  the  three  were  going 
steady  as  time,  yet  the  room  was  charged 
with  nervous  energy.  The  faces  of  the  three 
were  as  shut  against  emotion  as  three  graves, 
yet  the  minds  of  the  three  quivered  with  emo- 
tion ;  and  recollections,  influences,  brought 
back  from  sharp  battles  with  death,  were 
continued  from  mind  to  mind  with  telepathic 
vividness. 

"  Who  's  anaesthetizing,  Miss  Morse  ?  " 
The  Scot  turned  from  his  colleagues  to  a 
young  woman  who  was  dipping  a  handful 
of  gleaming  steel  into  the  enameled  tray  that 
formed  the  top  to  a  spare  iron  table. 

"Dr.  Henderson  has  young  Wear  and 
Mason  down  there  with  him,  but  he  's  doing 
the  anaesthetizing  himself."  She  smiled 
knowingly  at  the  men ;  she  appreciated  as 
keenly  as  they  did  that  an  operator  has  no 
business  to  tire  himself  out  with  the  anaes- 
65 


HENDERSON 

thetic.  "  The  patient  would  n't  have  it  any 
other  way,"  she  explained. 

Lahn,  who  was  chief  consulting  surgeon 
to  most  of  the  Kansas  City  hospitals,  and 
known  far  and  wide  through  the  Valley 
states  as  a  very  safe  man  behind  the  knife, 
spoke  next :  "  Ever  see  Henderson  operate, 
Mac  ?  No  ?  Well,  he 's  'way  ahead  of  me. 
Yes,  he  is.  You  've  got  a  treat  before  you. 
What  a  man  with  his  nerve  fools  away  time 
over  materia  medica  for  beats  me.  Clean- 
est, quickest,  stubbornest  operator  you  ever 
saw." 

"  What 's  he  abidin'  down  in  that  little 
town  for  ?  "  asked  the  Scot  skeptically. 

"  Why  is  it,  Carey,  anyhow  ?  "  Lahn  took 
up  the  question  as  though  it  had  long  inter- 
ested him.  "  You  're  his  friend.  Why  don't 
you  get  him  up  here  ?  I  want  him  for  the 
Hospital.  Besides  his  ability,  he  has  these 
Shores  back  of  him,  and  if  through  him  we 
could  get  Hardin  Shore  on  the  Directory, 
and  Mrs.  Shore  at  the  head  of  the  Ladies' 
66 


THE   LIFE   ON   THE   TABLE 

Auxiliary,  the  Hospital  would  be  in  luck 
already.  Why  won't  he  come  ?  " 

The  man  from  Kentucky  looked  immut- 
able. "Search  me!"  he  said.  "I've  done 
my  best  to  get  him  here,  but  every  time  he 
backs  down.  I  take  it  he  has  some  private 
reason  for  not  leaving  Penangton.  Got  a 
girl  down  there,  like  as  not." 

Another  young  woman  came  to  the  door. 
She  had  run  through  the  hall  from  the  ele- 
vator, and  she  was  panting  a  little.  "Dr. 
Carey,  they  are  having  trouble  getting  him 
under.  Dr.  Henderson  would  like  you  to 
step  down  a  minute." 

Carey  and  the  girl  went  off  down  the  hall 
with  the  long,  light  step  of  their  kind,  and 
presently  got  off  the  elevator  on  a  lower 
floor.  As  Carey  caught  the  swift,  treacher- 
ous wave  of  the  anesthetic  he  hastened  his 
pace  unconsciously,  and  passed  on  into  a 
luxurious  room,  where  on  a  narrow  white 
bed  lay  what  ten  minutes  before  had  been 
a  well-coordinated  man,  but  what  now  might 
67 


HENDERSON 

as  well  have  been  ox  or  bull  or  beef,  for  all 
the  promise  of  resurrection  in  the  face. 
Henderson,  at  the  head  of  the  bed,  was 
bending  over  the  face  and  pursuing  it  re- 
lentlessly with  an  inhaler  cap.  Back  and 
forth  thrashed  the  face,  and  dogging  it, 
riding  it,  came  the  cap  in  Henderson's  hand. 

"  Carey,"  said  Henderson,  without  look- 
ing up,  "  I  've  got  to  push  him  to  a  finish 
somehow.  He 's  been  bruising  his  lungs  on 
inspissated  air  long  enough.  I  can't  get  him 
under,  though,  as  long  as  he  has  hold  of 
that  hand."  Henderson  nodded  at  the  pa- 
tient's big  hand,  which  was  shut  like  faith 
around  a  woman's  hand. 

The  woman  looked  up  at  Henderson  with 
wan,  self -accusing  apology.  "  It  was  a  mis- 
take, was  n't  it  ?  "  she  whispered.  "  I  still 
can't  get  away." 

"  Oh,  he  would  go  to  sleep  with  Mrs. 

Shore's  hand  in  his,"  answered  Henderson 

laconically  to  the  inquiry  in  the  face  of  his 

colleague ;  "  and  without  meaning  to,  she  's 

68 


THE   LIFE   ON  THE  TABLE 

holding  him  this  side  of  Lethe.  See  if  you 
can  get  her  hand  away,  will  you  ?  " 

Presently  the  Kentuckian  raised  up,  red- 
faced  and  puffing.  "  Why,  Henderson,  I  'm 
dashed  if  I  can  untangle  him."  Carey 
stooped  again.  "  Just  alive  enough  to  swing 
to  her.  Uh-uh  !  I  'm  afraid,  if  they  're  to 
be  parted,  you  '11  have  to  do  the  parting, 
Henderson.  I  have  n't  the  muscle.  Peculiar 
case,  eh !  " 

Henderson's  lashes  dropped  down  over  a 
long,  yellow  gleam  in  his  eyes,  then  straight- 
ening up  to  let  Carey  take  his  place,  he  gave 
a  short,  harsh  laugh.  "  Peculiarest  case  you 
ever  saw,  Carey,  —  for  half  a  hundred  rea- 
sons. He  's  been  using  that  hand  as  a  rud- 
der through  the  waves  of  a  can  of  chloro- 
form, more  or  less.  Whew !  He  's  fought 
me  every  inch  of  the  way.  I'm  tired  be- 
fore I  begin."  But  he  mopped  his  forehead, 
and  without  an  instant's  delay  bent  over,  and 
with  his  supple  young  fingers  uncrinkled 
the  heavy  hand  from  the  white,  bruised  one 
69 


HENDERSON 

within  it.  Twice  he  straightened  out  the 
powerful  fingers  ;  twice  they  clamped  back 
like  jack-knives ;  and  the  last  time  Hen- 
derson's hand  and  the  woman's  hand  lay  shut 
together  within  the  strong  grasp. 

"  Oh  ! "  she  gasped,  under  her  breath. 
"  Oh,  don't !  It 's  pushing  a  drowning  man 
under  water  —  it 's  cruel  —  he 's  so  helpless. 
Oh,  don't  do  it  —  he  needs  me  —  don't — " 
She  had  gone  to  pieces,  in  the  way  people 
have  when  doctors  most  need  their  help ;  and 
Henderson  kept  straight  on,  in  the  way  doc- 
tors have  of  getting  along  without  help. 

"  Keep  quiet,  keep  quiet,"  he  growled. 
"  I  've  got  him.  Now,  Carey !  "  He  split 
loose  the  clump  of  hands  on  the  bed  with 
one  quick  upheaval,  swept  the  woman's  hand 
aside,  and  pulled  her  from  her  chair  just  as 
the  man  on  the  bed  lashed  out  wildly,  floun- 
dered back,  and,  under  the  compelling, 
unescapable  cap,  passed  on  into  a  deep, 
stupendous  coma. 

"  See  to  Mrs.  Shore,  Miss  Green,"  ordered 
70 


THE   LIFE   ON  THE   TABLE 

Henderson  briskly ;  "  and,  Wear,  you  and 
Mason  get  him  to  the  surgery  as  fast  as  you 
like.  We  '11  be  there  before  you  will." 

Five  minutes  later,  the  operators,  those 
who  were  to  assist  and  those  who  were  to 
stand  ready  to  assist,  were  flipping  asepticized 
water  from  their  hands  into  loose-meshed 
towels,  and  the  girl  at  the  tray  had  settled 
back,  erect  and  vigilant  as  a  sentry.  Lahn 
and  Henderscfn  were  tucking  their  duck 
sleeves  to  the  elbow,  as  they  filed  around  to 
the  table,  and  talking  of  little  things,  which 
is  good  for  the  nerves. 

"  Awfully  nice  of  you  to  play  second  fiddle 
for  me,  old  man,"  Henderson  was  saying 
appreciatively. 

"  You  ought  to  pay  me  back  for  it  by  com- 
ing up  here  to  live,  as  I  want  you  to.  There  's 
a  big  business  up  here  for  you.  Your  friends 
the  Shores  are  here,  too.  That  ought  to  count 
for  something." 

"  It  does,"  said  Henderson,  —  "  counts 
for  a  heap."  He  called  abruptly  to  Carey 
71 


HENDEKSON 

then :  "  I  'd  rather  you  'd  be  at  the  cap, 
Carey,  if  you  don't  mind.  Just  let  Dr.  Carey 
in  there,  Mr.  Wear,  and  you  have  the  salt 
solution  ready,  will  you  ?  "  The  clear,  ring- 
ing voice  was  quickly  buoyant  with  mastery. 
The  ground  that  he  was  on  he  knew  so  com- 
pletely ;  he  was  so  strong  on  it ;  it  was  so 
easy  for  him  to  cover  the  whole  surgical  out- 
look with  half  an  eye.  Before  he  had  put 
out  his  hand  to  the  girl  at  the  tray  his  mind 
had  got  away  ahead,  and  was  pushing  every 
adverse  possibility  down  within  reach  of  the 
hand.  The  girl  gave  him  a  knife,  and  put 
her  hand  back  over  the  other  instruments. 
Then,  Henderson,  surgeon,  with  his  own  life 
a-tingle  to  the  finger-tips,  took  up  the  life 
on  the  table,  and  cut  and  lifted  and  twisted 
with  it  through  delicate  ganglia  and  fascia, 
in  and  out  around  ligament  and  artery,  — 
now  slicing  with  knife,  now  snipping  with 
scissors,  now  squeezing  with  catch-forceps ; 
met  at  each  need,  before  he  could  voice  it, 
by  the  girl  at  the  tray  or  the  chief  across 
72 


THE  LIFE   ON   THE  TABLE 

from  him.  He  began  to  enjoy  the  work.  He 
was  far  up  on  the  cool,  invulnerable  heights 
of  Science ;  the  man  before  him  was  no 
longer  a  man,  but  his  case.  He  was  achiev- 
ing what  the  chief  would  call  a  classical  op- 
eration, dexterous,  clean-handed,  watchful, 
working  like  a  beaver  and  ordering  like  a 
general :  "  Look  to  the  ligature  there,  Mason. 
Steady  that  arm  all  you  can,  Mac.  Pull  that 
muscle  back  just  a  trifle,  Lahn." 

"  Henderson,"  interrupted  Carey,  with  an 
admirable  cool-headedness  which  he  had  not 
acquired  in  Kentucky,  "  I  can't  give  you 
much  more  time." 

Henderson  raised  up  from  over  the  case 
for  just  one  second.  "  Don't  you  try  to  hurry 
me,  Carey,"  —  the  words  would  have  been  a 
threat  if  they  had  not  been  a  prayer.  "  You 
hold  on  to  him.  There 's  a  lot  of  involve- 
ment here."  His  fingers  were  back  at  work 
again,  cutting  and  peeling  ever  more  rapidly. 
"See  that,  Lahn.  I  '11  have  to  get  that  out, 
sure  as  fate." 

73 


HENDERSON 

"  You  '11  have  to  be  a  little  quicker  than 
fate,  then,"  said  Carey  dryly.  No  man  likes 
to  stand  at  the  cap  as  the  gray  shadow  steals 
over  the  face  on  the  table.  Without  any 
change  of  posture  on  the  part  of  the  men, 
without  word  or  sign,  a  fight  was  now  on 
above  the  unheeding  form  before  them. 
From  being  a  case  the  form  had  become  a 
man  again,  rehabilitated,  reprivileged,  by  his 
dire  danger,  as  he  hung  there  on  the  shaking 
thread  of  his  pulse.  In  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye,  his  inviolable  property  right  in  lif  e  had 
become  paramount.  It  was  a  moment  as 
acutely  personal  as  though  Technique,  Skill, 
Experience,  and  all  the  other  white  hand- 
maidens of  Science  had  become  clumsy,  wordy 
unrealities.  Each  man  was  formulating  his 
intense  private  idea  ;  each  man  was  getting 
ready  to  offer  it  to  Henderson,  arbiter  of 
fate  there  j  and  each  man  would,  and  must, 
then,  according  to  the  Code,  stand  back  and 
lift  not  so  much  as  a  deterrent  finger  in  the 

course  Henderson  should  select  for  himself, 

74 


THE   LIFE   ON   THE   TABLE 

though  the  danger  of  that  course  stiffened 
a  man's  backbone  with  suspense. 

"  Ain't  I  right,  Lahn  ?  "  asked  Henderson, 
a  little  drawn  about  the  mouth,  but  hard- 
voiced  and  steady-handed. 

The  chief  glanced  from  the  case's  arm  to 
the  case's  face.  "  Theoretically  you  are,  Hen- 
derson, but  every  second's  going  against 
him.  Look  yonder.  Better  have  a  live  man 
with  a  little  mischief  sewed  up  in  him  than 
a  dead  one  sweet  and  clean." 

"  What 's  your  mind,  Mac  ?  "  White  to 
the  lips  now,  Henderson  again  held  out  his 
hand  to  the  girl  at  the  tray. 

The  Scot  edged  over.  "  It  means  you  '11 
have  all  the  work  to  do  again  if  you  leave 
those  nuclei  in  there,  which  will  kill  him 
then  instead  of  now  ;  but "  —  he  waited  a 
second  to  catch  his  cautious  national  poise  — 
"  I  believe  I  'd  stop  on  what 's  done,  Hender- 
son. He 's  uncommon  slippish." 

"I  don't  like  to  go  against  you,  gen- 
tlemen," —  Henderson  closed  his  fingers 
75 


HENDERSON 

around  a  pair  of  scissors  the  girl  had  put 
into  them,  —  "  but  he  's  got  to  have  his  full 
fighting  chance."  His  teeth  clamped  off  the 
ends  of  his  words  as  he  bent  again  to  the 
work, —  by  that  one  half  second  of  answer 
over  against  the  others,  by  that  taking  arbi- 
trary possession  of  the  life  on  the  table,  by 
that  making  himself  lord  dispenser  of  life 
and  death ! 

"  Whatever  comes  of  it,  I  did  all  I  could 
for  you,  you  great,  barring  hulk."  Hender- 
son never  knew  whether  he  said  those  words 
out  loud  or  only  thought  them,  but  presently 
he  heard  his  voice  reassuringly  distinct,  and 
neatly  punctuated  by  the  pauses  needed  to 
obey  his  instructions  :  "  Get  the  salt  solution 
going  now,  Wear,  —  he  '11  tone  up.  .  .  . 
See  his  lips  now,  Lahn.  .  .  .  I  'm  ready  to 
put  those  coaptation  sutures  in,  Mac.  .  .  . 
See  his  lips  now,  boys.  .  .  .  Get  me  threaded 
there,  Miss  Morse.  .  .  .  See  his  lips  now, 
Lahn  —  see  his  lips,  Lahn  —  ah,  God  ! 


see—" 


76 


THE   LIFE   ON   THE  TABLE 

Then  came  the  final  word  of  the  chief  : 
"  Guess  you  did  the  right  thing,  after  all, 
Henderson.  He  '11  come  round.  Tired,  are  n't 
you  ?  Tedious  job,  all  right.  Let  'em  trot 
him  off  to  bed  now.  He's  safe  for  fifty 
years  to  come." 


77 


Ill 

THE  ROSE-RED  GLOW 

GRAY  weather! 

Henderson,  getting  back  toward  Penang- 
ton  from  a  visit  to  a  sick  man  down  Weaver 
Road  in  the  late  afternoon  of  a  cloudy  day, 
talked  to  his  mare  for  company,  and  glanced 
out  from  his  buggy-hood  across  the  still 
fields  with  a  peculiar,  aching  apprehension. 
He  could  feel  the  distance  from  house  to 
house  along  the  desolate  country  road  as 
though  distance  were  a  snake-like  thing  to 
twist  out  and  sting  a  man,  and  he  could  feel 
the  loneliness  of  his  thought  like  the  chilly, 
vaporish  touch  of  spectral  wings.  All  the 
land  beyond  the  rail  fences  lay  solemnly 
quiet.  The  chickens,  ruffed  up  under  the 
bushes,  the  mules  at  the  five-barred  gates, 
looked  solemn ;  the  cows,  huddled  neck  to 
haunch  under  the  sugar-maples,  the  dogs  on 
78 


THE  ROSE-RED   GLOW 

the  porch  mats,  the  droopy  children  at  the 
doors,  looked  solemn.  If  a  woman  came  to 
a  door  and  peered  out  over  the  children,  she 
did  it  solemnly.  If  a  man  came  up  across 
lots  from  the  ploughing,  he  came  in  a  sad 
saunter. 

Gray !   Gray ! 

Henderson  put  his  head  against  the  side 
of  the  buggy-hood  to  observe  the  length  and 
the  breadth  of  it,  but  it  was  quickly  too  much 
for  him.  Slanting  his  lids  far  enough  down 
to  shut  out  a  great  deal  of  it,  he  tried  to 
evade  the  rest  of  it  and  his  loneliness  by  see- 
ing how  it  would  have  been  with  him  at  this 
hour,  on  this  kind  of  a  homeward  journey, 
if  it  had  ever  happened  that  his  dream  had 
come  true.  It  could  be  gray  like  this,  evening 
coming  on,  and  he  would  be  a  little  tired,  — 
as  he  undoubtedly  was  now,  —  and  he  would 
be  urging  the  mare  forward,  —  as  he  did  not 
do  now,  —  until  he  could  stop  at  a  house 
that  he  had  built  once  in  the  dream,  and 
jump  from  the  buggy,  and  look  up,  —  he 
79 


HENDERSON 

•would  not  let  the  dream  come  fast  now,  he 
held  it  back  a  little,  fastidiously  careful  with 
it,  —  and  there,  in  the  door,  a  rose-red  glow 
over  her  from  a  shaded  lamp  or  something, 
She  would  be  standing.  "  Waiting  for  me," 
Henderson  suggested  to  himself,  his  lips 
trembling  over  the  beauty  of  the  words. 
"  Waiting  —  for  me,"  he  repeated.  And  she 
would  hold  out  her  hand  to  him,  hold  out 
both  her  hands,  and  he  would  get  to  her  in 
a  hurry,  —  in  the  dream  he  could  always  get 
to  her,  —  and  he  would  take  her  hand,  take 
both  her  hands,  and  they  would  go  inside, 
and  she  would  be  his,  while  they  talked  and 
laughed  a  little  and  read  a  little  and  sang 
a  little,  the  gray  weather  hanging  futilely 
without,  and,  more  likely  than  not,  he  would 
keep  her  hand  in  his  all  the  time,  —  yes, 
surely,  keep  her  hand,  —  ah-h-h  !  the  dream- 
touch  of  that  hand,  lingering,  confidential, 
woman-sweet ! 

He  was  back  within  Penangton's  gates, 

so  he  sat  up  and  shook  himself  out  of  the 
80 


THE   ROSE-RED   GLOW 

dream  :  "  Oh,  you  fool !  "  he  told  himself 
sharply ;  "  always  dreaming  up  some  smoke- 
woman,  some  bachelor's  comfort,  always 
teasing  yourself  away  from  the  possible  to- 
ward the  — "  He  stopped  with  that,  and 
driving  on  down  the  street  to  Toplitz's  drug 
store,  he  turned  his  entire  attention  to  the 
comfort  of  his  mare,  stabling  her  himself  in 
the  barn  behind  the  store,  petting  her,  half 
clinging  to  her,  loath  to  go  away  from  tho 
little  comfort  of  her  soft  kind  eyes  and  her 
occasional  affectionate  snozzling  at  his  neck. 

When  he  left  her  and  emerged  from  the 
stable,  a  slow  fine  rain  was  sifting  down. 
He  made  his  way  through  it,  around  to  the 
front  of  the  store,  above  which  he  had  his 
office  and  living-rooms. 

"  Hi,  Henderson  !  Ain't  seen  you  since 
you  got  back  from  your  trip  East;  stop  a 
minute."  There  were  three  or  four  men 
around  the  counter,  each  in  approved  corner- 
store  attitude,  one  foot  hitched  back  a  little, 
the  whole  weight  of  the  body  slouched  upon 
81 


the  other  foot  and  upon  the  elbows  that  were 
flexed  back  upon  the  counter.  They  greeted 
Henderson  cordially  as  he  came  through, 
asking  questions,  trying  to  get  at  his  affairs, 
earnestly  interested,  after  the  fashion  of 
corner-store  men. 

"Didn't  get  married  while  you  were 
away?" 

"  No,  oh  no ;  I  was  doing  post-graduate 
surgical  work,"  Henderson  told  them. 

"  Well,  glad  you  did  n't  bring  a  Yankee 
girl  home  with  you,  Henderson ;  you  are  one 
of  us  now,  —  take  a  wife  from  our  home 
girls." 

"  Sure,  Henderson ;  lots  of  nice  girls  in 
Penangton  who  can  cook  and  housekeep." 

Followed  by  a  fire  of  suggestions  of  this 
kind,  Henderson  went  on  upstairs  to  his 
room.  Arrived  there,  it  first  occurred  to 
him  that  nothing  under  heaven  can  dis- 
hearten a  sentimental  man  like  the  shifty 
talk  of  commonplace  men  who  advise  a 
sentimental  thing,  —  marrying,  —  for  an  un- 
82 


THE  ROSE-RED   GLOW 

sentimental  reason,  —  getting  somebody  to 
cook  for  you.  And  it  next  occurred  to  him 
that  nothing  under  heaven  can  make  a  lonely 
man  feel  his  loneliness  as  does  the  room  that 
he  insists  upon  arranging  for  himself,  with 
a  blank  disregard  of  the  consolation  in  color, 
in  the  softness  of  a  hanging,  in  the  readi- 
ness of  a  cushion.  All  Henderson's  stuff  was 
stiff.  His  chairs  were  the  kind  of  chairs 
whose  arms  seem  to  double  away  from  you 
instead  of  toward  you.  Over  in  one  corner 
stood  his  instrument  cabinet,  a  glass-sided 
thing  that  twirled  on  a  pivot  and  revealed 
knives,  forceps,  tenacula,  scissors,  probes  on 
every  side.  The  cold  metallic  gleam  of  the 
instruments  was  no  colder  than  anything 
else  in  the  room.  His  neat  desk,  —  Hender- 
son was  orderly,  —  an  operating-chair,  and  a 
hard,  worn  leather  couch  completed  the  fur- 
nishing of  the  outer  room ;  and  in  the  other 
room  there  was  a  carpet,  a  bed,  a  chair, 
a  wardrobe,  and  a  washstand.  It  could  not 
have  been  worse.  Henderson  put  his  medi- 
83 


HENDERSON 

cine-case  on  the  desk  and  walked  to  the 
window.  The  room  had  got  on  his  nerves. 

Outside  the  window  the  rain  was  coming 
down  with  increased  volume  and  directness. 
Almost  all  the  people  who  passed  on  the 
court-house  side  held  their  umbrellas  gripped 
down  closely  ;  but  one  girl  who  passed  let 
hers  fall  back  on  her  shoulder,  when  she  was 
opposite  Henderson's  office,  and  looked  up. 
There  was  a  smile  on  her  face  and  a  light 
in  her  eyes  as  she  bowed  to  him.  She  was 
Miss  Penang,  the  daughter  of  the  lady  with 
whom  he  took  his  meals,  and,  despite  some 
disastrous  turns  of  circumstances,  entitled 
to  especial  consideration,  according  to  her 
mother's  way  of  looking  at  it,  because  her 
father's  father's  father  had  founded  and 
named  Penangton.  Henderson  watched  her 
as  far  as  he  could  see  her,  her  smile  teasing 
him  and  cheering  him  for  an  interval.  Then 
he  went  back  and  sat  down  on  the  leather 
couch. 

So  much  alone !  So  much  alone !  The 
84 


THE   ROSE-RED   GLOW 

rain  beat  the  consciousness  of  his  aloneness 
at  him  in  dull  cold  spats,  the  walls  dripped 
it,  the  couch  was  slippery  with  it.  Why  did 
he  insist  upon  it?  Why  did  not  he  marry 
some  girl,  with  a  nice  smile  and  a  light  in 
her  eyes,  who  could  at  least  cheer  him  a 
little?  If  he  were  married,  he  would  have 
somebody  to  work  for ;  there  would  be  some 
use  in  digging  out  his  career,  in  developing 
his  remarkable  surgical  abilities,  if  he  had 
anybody  to  care  about  his  success,  to  be 
benefited  by  it,  to  be  glad  about  it.  Why 
not  marry  ?  Why  hold  himself  to  the  mea- 
sure of  a  dream?  That  was  what  he  was 
doing.  Because  he  had  an  ideal  of  a  woman's 
face,  a  woman's  form,  a  woman's  touch,  her 
voice,  her  sympathetic  intelligence,  her  vital 
effect  upon  him,  he  would  look  at  and  think 
of  nothing  else,  nothing  less.  It  was  im- 
mensely stupid.  He  really  needed  a  wife. 
It  was  high  time  that  he  looked  at  the  ques- 
tion practically,  as  did  other  men,  who,  hav- 
ing missed  real  romance  through  deficiency 
85 


HENDERSON 

in  sentiment  or  hostility  of  circumstances, 
hobble  on  to  the  recognition  of  the  winter- 
bitten  fact  that  they  "  ought  to  marry."  He, 
Henderson,  "  ought "  to  have  a  home,  wife, 
children.  Say  that  he  could  not  get  the 
ideal  in  touch,  voice,  intelligence,  vital  effect 
upon  him,  he  could  probably  get  eyes  with 
some  light  in  them,  a  nice  smile,  fair  intelli- 
gence ;  other  men  rested  with  no  more,  and 
there  was  no  gainsaying  that  it  looked  as 
though  a  man  should  be  able  to  secure  some 
large  satisfactions  out  of  the  mere  fact  that 
he  was  settled  and  had  somebody  to  care 
a  little.  Why,  if  he,  to-night,  here,  now,  had 
anybody,  anybody  on  earth,  to  talk  to,  to 
let  him  lean  his  head  against  a  minute,  he 
would  be  happy,  or  if  not  happy,  certainly 
cheered  and  soothed. 

He  lay  back  by  the  couch's  one  fat  silk 
pillow.  *  Miss  Penang  had  made  that  pillow 
for  him,  and  there  had  been  times  in  his  life 
when,  all  stuck  over  with  pin-feathers,  he 
had  hated  it  and  hated  Miss  Penang  for 
86 


THE   ROSE-RED   GLOW 

having  made  it.  This  evening,  however, 
flattened  beyond  himself  by  his  unlovely 
surroundings,  he  took  the  pillow  into  his 
arms  and  clung  to  it.  It  was  better  than 
nothing.  It  was  a  little  podgy  symbol  that 
somebody  had  thought  about  him  and  his 
comfort  for  a  minute.  Its  bright  color  was 
pleasing,  and  a  fragrance  stole  out  of  it,  the 
mystic  fragrance  on  whose  languorous  wings 
women's  smiles,  softness,  whiteness,  pretti- 
ness  go  floating  by.  He  laid  it  down  rather 
affectionately  after  a  while,  rose  from  the 
couch,  and  made  himself  ready  to  go  to 
Mrs.  Penang's  for  supper. 

As  he  put  by  his  umbrella  in  the  hall  in 
Mrs.  Penang's  house,  he  saw  through  the 
open  door  into  the  parlor.  Lula  Penang 
was  in  there,  sitting  under  the  rose-red  light 
of  a  shaded  piano-lamp,  idly  turning  some 
new  music  in  her  lap,  and  whistling  and 
humming  occasional  snatches  that  appealed 
to  her. 

"Oh,  you?"  she  said  as  Henderson 
87 


HENDERSON 

stopped  in  the  doorway.  She  put  her  music 
on  the  piano  and  got  up.  "  If  you  are  going 
to  supper,  I'll  come  along,  too;  most  every- 
body 's  through,  but  I  have  n't  had  mine 
yet."  Henderson  had  sometimes  been  made 
restless  by  the  other  boarders'  insistence  that 
Miss  Penang  rather  systematically  "  came 
along,  too,"  but  to-night  he  felt  glad  that 
she  had  waited  for  him.  It  seemed  kind. 
He  stood  looking  at  her  for  a  moment  in  a 
questioning  surprise,  barring  the  door  with 
his  long  slender  body. 

"Do  you  know,  I  like  you  in  that  rose 
light,"  he  said,  his  eyes  about  half  shut  as 
he  said  it.  The  thought  that  perhaps  rose 
lights  in  general  had  more  to  do  with  it  than 
the  woman  who  stood  under  them  in  particu- 
lar had  come  into  his  mind  with  a  little 
aesthetic  shock. 

"  No,  I  did  n't  know  it,"  the  girl  before 
him  answered  with  a  restrained  fervor  in  her 
voice ;  "  maybe  I  'd  better   stay  here   in  it 
then,  and  let  you  go  on  to  supper  alone  ?  " 
88 


THE  EOSE-RED   GLOW 

"  Oh  no,  you  don't,"  said  Henderson 
quickly,  that  word  "  alone "  smiting  him ; 
"  no,  you  come  along,  and  we  '11  have  supper 
together  and  come  hack  to  the  rose  light." 

That  was  not  much  to  say,  yet  Henderson 
had  always  kept  the  thought  of  the  rose 
light  so  especially  for  Her  that  that  much 
sounded  like  something  to  which  he  would 
have  to  accustom  his  ears  forcefully  and  de- 
terminedly if  they  were  ever  to  be  accus- 
tomed to  it.  He  was  glad  that  there  was  no 
rose-red  glow  in  the  dining-room,  and  that 
Miss  Penang  sat  opposite  him  in  the  direct 
light  of  the  small  gas  chandelier  overhead. 
It  had  occurred  to  him  on  the  way  to  the 
dining-room  that  this  was  a  practical  ques- 
tion with  him  now,  and  that  it  would  be  bet- 
ter to  consider  it  in  direct  lights  only.  In 
the  direct  light  he  could  see  that,  though 
the  girl  was  young  and  pretty,  her  lips  were 
thin  and  purposeful,  and  as  her  mother,  a 
hard-faced  woman,  came  and  went  about  the 
table,  there  was  a  constant  disconcerting 
89 


HENDERSON 

illustration  of  what  that  kind  of  lips  made 
of  a  woman  when  she  was  no  longer  young. 
In  the  direct  light,  Henderson  told  himself, 
with  a  fine  prevision  of  the  amount  of  nui- 
sance the  wrong  woman  might  be  in  a  man's 
life,  Miss  Penang  had  not  one  characteristic 
that,  coming  out  subtly  on  her  face  or  in 
her  voice,  appealed  to  him  especially  for  her, 
as  opposed  to  any  other  young  and  pretty 
girl,  —  unless,  indeed,  it  were  that  light  in 
her  eyes.  Shining  from  far  back,  liquidly, 
as  though  it  came  through  the  softness  and 
sweetness  of  occasional  tears,  it  was  the  best 
thing  about  her.  Henderson  had  sometimes 
wondered  if  it  were  really  in  her  eyes  when 
he  had  first  met  her  upon  his  installation  in 
Penangton  two  or  three  years  before;  he 
had  not  noticed  it  until  just  before  he  went 
East ;  but  then  he  had  not  noticed  her  at  all, 
except  for  that  unpleasant  sensation  that  she 
was  a  little  insistent  in  her  attentions  to  him. 
Out  in  town  she  and  her  mother  labored 
under  an  unfortunate  reputation  of  being 
90 


THE   ROSE-RED   GLOW 

too  anxious  for  her  to  marry  well,  and  the 
other  boarders,  having  made  much  of  it  for 
Henderson's  especial  benefit,  had  influenced 
him  into  a  man's  silent  resentment  about 
it.  That  was  as  far  as  he  had  ever  got  in 
any  conscious  consideration  of  Miss  Penang, 
until  there  in  the  rose  light  and  here  in  the 
direct  light.  His  conclusion  now  was  that  it 
was  a  pity  that  she  did  not  look  the  same 
under  both  illuminations ;  but  just  then  Miss 
Penang  got  up  and  went  into  the  kitchen 
for  a  moment,  and  when  she  returned  with 
a  plate  of  hot  cakes  that  she  had  browned 
for  him  herself,  the  conclusion  seemed  less 
final.  The  cakes  were  exactly  as  he  liked 
them. 

"  It 's  such  an  awfully  bad  night,  Doctor," 
suggested  Mrs.  Penang,  looking  through  the 
kitchen  door;  "why  don't  you  stay  down 
here  till  bedtime  ?  I  should  think  you  'd  be 
lonely  over  those  shut-up  stores,  a  rainy,  blue 
evening  like  this.  Stay  down  here  with  Lu 
and  me."  They  had  invited  him  like  that 
91 


HENDERSON 

many  times  before,  but  beyond  idling  at  the 
parlor  fire  for  a  minute  on  a  few  winter 
nights  and  sitting,  unrelaxed  and  impatient, 
on  the  bench  in  the  front  yard  for  a  minute 
on  a  few  summer  evenings,  he  had  never 
profited  by  the  invitation  until  to-night.  To- 
night, quitting  the  supper-table,  he  went  into 
the  parlor  in  the  wake  of  Miss  Penang,  still 
a  little  uncertain ;  but  when  Mrs.  Penang 
came  to  the  door  and  said  that,  as  the  cur- 
tains would  have  to  come  down  to  be  laun- 
dered next  day  anyway,  he  could  smoke  if 
he  wanted  to,  his  misgiving  began  to  leave 
him,  and  he  felt  more  cheerful  than  he  had 
felt  in  a  long  time. 

"Yes,  indeed,  smoke  away,"  said  Miss 
Penang.  She  selected  a  pillow  from  the 
array  on  the  sofa  where  he  had  seated  him- 
self with  his  head  against  the  wall,  and 
insisted  upon  his  putting  it  behind  his  shoul- 
ders. Then  she  stepped  over  to  the  piano- 
stool  and  sat  down  in  the  rose-red  glow 
of  the  piano-lamp.  She  looked  wonderfully 
92 


THE   ROSE-RED   GLOW 

better  at  once.  "  Do  you  want  me  to  sing  to 
you  ?  "  she  asked,  her  hands  trailing  on  the 
keys,  her  young  body  half  turned  from  him, 
her  face  twisted  over  her  shoulder  at  him. 
Already  great  feathery  wreaths  of  smoke  lay 
between  Henderson  and  her.  Half  shutting 
his  eyes,  he  saw  her  through  the  fluff  of 
smoke  as  through  a  veil,  the  rose-red  glow 
toning  her,  the  high  light  in  her  eyes,  the 
smile  on  her  lips.  Seen  in  that  way,  he  got 
from  her  a  soothing,  complementary  sense 
of  femininity  without  any  worry  about  what 
she  was  and  what  she  might  become.  She 
was  just  Woman.  "  Do  you  want  me  to  sing 
to  you  ?  "  she  repeated. 

"Mh-hm,  please.  But  low,  sing  low,"  he 
ordered.  "  I  don't  know  but  what  I  'd  rather 
you  'd  hum  and  whistle  in  that  funny  way  of 
yours." 

She  laughed  docilely,  not  musician  enough 

to  resent  the  restrictions  imposed  and  well 

enough  satisfied  with  Henderson  to  meet  the 

humor  of  his  painstaking   self-indulgence. 

93 


HENDEKSON 

Starting  in  obediently,  she  whistled  a  bar  or 
two,  then  trilled  off  softly  in  a  hushed  lah- 
de-dah-de-doo.  Then  presently  the  words  of 
the  song  stole  out  as  well,  a  whole  stanza 
about  love  generically,  about  the  fact  that 
birds  and  flowers  and  earth  and  sky  thrilled 
with  love  harmonies,  a  long  if  simple  diapa- 
son that  sounded  the  making  of  worlds,  until 
the  song-writer,  oppressed  possibly  by  the 
eternity  in  the  theme,  ran  away  from  it  on 
the  fleet-footed  refrain,  — 

"  I  love  !  love  you,  dear,  none  but  you! " 

Through  the  red  glow  Henderson  noticed 
by  and  by  that  the  girl's  back  was  straight. 
He  noticed  that  her  own  and  her  mother's 
valuation  of  her  showed  rather  adroitly  in 
the  tilt  of  her  head.  He  noticed  that  her 
hair  had  a  soft,  babyish  kink  where  it  lifted, 
thick  and  brown,  from  the  back  of  her  neck. 
As  he  sat,  he  could  not  see  her  lips,  with 
their  little  hovering  expression  of  purpose- 
fulness.  He  could  not  see  any  of  the  indi- 
cations of  the  sharp  woman  of  small  schemes 
94 


THE   ROSE-RED   GLOW 

she  would  necessarily  become  as  soon  as  her 
youth  was  gone.  He  could  see  only  her 
prettiness  and  the  dimpling  swell  of  her  na- 
ture under  the  melody  of  her  song.  As  she 
floated  toward  him,  draped,  as  it  were,  by 
the  dreamy  rose-light  vibrations,  Henderson 
floated  to  meet  her,  not  because  she  was  Miss 
Penang,  but  because  she  was  Woman.  He 
guessed  he  would  propose  to  her  when  she 
finished  the  song. 

"Love  you,  dear,  none  but  you  —  lah, 
lah-de-doo-lah-de-doo." 

"  That 's  it,"  murmured  Henderson  ; 
ft  leave  out  the  words ;  give  me  just  the  lah- 
de-doo." 

"Don't  you  care  for  the  words?"  asked 
the  girl.  "  I  think  they  're  sweet.  I  sing 
them  as  Lynn  Penryn  —  Mrs.  Shore,  you 
know  —  used  to  sing  them,  twisted  right 
much.  Lynn  has  a  way  of  twisting  things 
to  suit  herself,  don't  you  think  so,  —  or  do 
you  know  her  well  enough  to  know  that  ?  " 

Henderson  had  about  finished  his  cigar, 
95 


HENDERSON 

and  he  now  took  the  smouldering  stub  of  it 
from  between  his  teeth  and  sat  up  straight. 
The  feathery  fluff  between  him  and  the  girl 
cleared  away.  As  he  made  no  reply,  Miss 
Penang  continued  casually,  "  Lynn  was  to 
come  down  from  Kansas  City  on  the  evening 
train,  so  Mr.  Penryn  told  me  up  at  the  bank 
a  little  bit  ago.  I  wonder  if  she  came  ?  Did 
you  hear  any  one  say  at  the  drug  store  ? 
She  and  her  husband  were  both  coming ;  did 
you  hear  whether  they  came  ?  "  And  when 
Henderson  said  no,  he  had  not  heard,  Miss 
Penang  added,  "  Well,  I  reckon  she  came," 
nodding  her  head  over  it,  and  beginning  to 
sing  the  refrain  again,  — 

"Love  you,  dear,  none  but  you!" 

Henderson  got  to  his  feet.  "I  must  be 
going,"  he  said  in  a  slow,  absent  way.  And 
when  the  girl,  with  a  disappointed,  troubled 
look  on  her  face,  glanced  up  at  him  and 
asked,  "  Oh,  going  now  ?  "  he  answered,  yes, 
he  must.  She  went  to  the  outer  door  with 
him,  and  recovering  himself  on  the  step  suf- 
96 


THE   ROSE-RED   GLOW 

ficiently  to  be  conscious  of  some  obligation 
to  her,  he  tried  feebly  to  express  to  her  his 
appreciation  of  her  goodness  in  helping  him 
get  through  a  bad  evening. 

"  Oh,  pshaw !  stay  any  time  that  you  think 
the  hum  and  whistle  will  amuse  you,"  she 
told  him,  with  a  pleasant  intonation,  which, 
conquering  her  purpose  and  her  disappoint- 
ment, had  an  unconscious  heroism  in  it.  But 
Henderson,  absorbed  now  in  his  own  heart's 
concern,  missed  this  illustration  of  the  trag- 
edy of  waste  in  Love's  economy. 

He  said  that  he  was  very  much  obliged, 
and  put  up  his  umbrella  and  went  down  the 
steps.  At  the  gate  he  saw  that  she  was  still 
standing  in  the  doorway.  Through  the  par- 
lor window  the  red  light  shone  on  under  the 
half-drawn  blind  rosily,  but  the  girl,  out  be- 
yond it  in  the  shadow,  looked  unrelievedly 
drab.  He  started  off  up  the  street  in  the  di- 
rection of  his  office,  but  as  soon  as  he  heard 
the  Penangs'  front  door  shut  he  turned  in  his 
tracks  and  came  past  the  house  again,  on  his 
97 


HENDERSON 

way  to  another  house,  which  he  did  not  reach 
until  he  had  rounded  two  corners  and  tra- 
versed a  long  distance  on  a  densely  shaded 
street.  He  had  been  growing  happier  and 
happier  all  the  way  to  the  house,  until,  as  he 
rang  the  bell  on  its  front  door,  the  very 
hand  that  he  put  forth  seemed  sentient  in 
eagerness. 

A  servant  opened  the  door,  and  in  the  hall 
beyond  the  servant  a  woman  stopped  as  she 
was  passing  to  the  library.  The  globes  of  the 
hall  chandelier  were  red,  and  as  Henderson 
entered  through  the  door  their  glow  bathed 
her  from  head  to  foot,  and  made  her  fully 
and  perfectly  the  picture,  the  whole  right 
thing.  No  need  to  half  shut  one's  eyes  so 
that  the  glow  might  tone  her.  Falling  on 
her  face,  her  throat,  her  firm,  close-draped 
figure,  the  glow  became  at  once  a  part  of 
her,  and  at  once  seemed  to  burn  delicately 
from  within  outward.  She  came  toward  him, 
with  both  her  hands  held  out  gladly,  and  he 
took  her  hands,  and  for  one  lying  second 
98 


THE  ROSE-RED  GLOW 

everything  was  perfect,  because  of  her  touch, 
her  voice,  her  sympathetic  intelligence,  her 
vital  effect  upon  him. 

"  Oh,  good !  Hardin  and  I  were  wishing 
that  you  would  find  out  to-night  that  we  had 
come,"  she  was  saying,  not  letting  his  hands 
go  at  once,  and  looking  up  at  him,  that  un- 
namable  effect  of  hers  getting  into  the  air 
around  her  in  broad,  wave-like  vibrations  that 
were  like  low  music.  "  Father  says  we  come 
down  to  Penangton  to  see  you  quite  as  much 
as  to  see  him.  Hardin  admits  it.  And  I  can't 
deny  it.  What  made  you  stay  East  so  long  ? 
We  have  missed  you."  Her  voice  trembled 
a  little,  and  Henderson  got  from  it  an  instant 
impression  that  she  had  needed  him,  too. 

"  Was  it  long  ?  It  was  to  me ;  but  still,  I 
thought  very  seriously  of  making  it  longer. 
I  thought  of  not  coming  back  to  Missouri 
at)  ail. 

"  I  knew  it,  I  knew  it !  "  she  cried,  with 
that  little  grieving  shake  in  her  voice,  which 
Henderson  could  not  stand. 
99 


HENDERSON 

"But  I  came  back  all  right.  How's 
Hard?" 

"  Well,  so  he  says.  Come  in  here  to  him 
and  father." 

That  was  all  there  was  of  it,  —  only  one 
minute  in  the  glow,  with  her  hands  in  his. 
Then  Henderson  followed  her  into  the  library, 
where  two  very  different  men  greeted  him. 
One,  Lowry  Penryn,  Penangton's  richest  citi- 
zen, was  a  thin,  hatchet-faced  man,  whose 
small  black  eyes  were  noted  as  being  the 
sharpest  eyes  in  the  state  of  Missouri,  but 
who  had  a  fashion  of  looking  at  his  daugh- 
ter when  she  was  not  looking  at  him,  and  of 
not  looking  at  her  when  she  was  looking  at 
him.  The  other  was  Hardin  Shore,  rich,  self- 
made,  vigorous  and  expansive,  whose  ambi- 
tions, after  leading  him  into  the  politics  of 
his  home  city,  Kansas  City,  were  now,  so  it 
developed  in  his  conversation,  blazing  a  trail 
for  him  straight  into  the  larger  politics  of  the 
state.  He  had  come  down  to  Penangton  on 
this  occasion  to  consult  with  his  father-in-law 
100 


THE  ROSE-EED  GLOW 

about  his  campaign  fund  for  the  governor- 
ship of  Missouri,  and  also,  ostensibly,  to  con- 
sult with  Henderson,  as  his  physician-friend, 
concerning  the  possible  menace  to  his  health 
should  he  enter  into  the  excitement  of  poli- 
tics. He  was  big  and  powerful  to  look  at, 
but  no  healthier  than  most  heavy-bodied, 
tightly  strung  men,  and  the  malignant 
growth  that  Henderson  had  removed  from 
his  arm  the  year  before  had  already  told  its 
story  of  constitutional  dyscrasia.  Shore,  who 
was  a  precipitate  man,  set  about  talking  over 
his  purposes  there  in  the  library  at  once 
with  Lowry  and  Henderson,  and  Henderson 
quickly  noticed  that  as  Shore  talked  his  eyes 
avoided  his  wife's  eyes,  —  as  though  he  recog- 
nized that  he  could  hold  more  adequately  to 
his  own  notions  if  he  did  not  look  at  her,  — 
and  that  he  seemed  possessed  by  a  rough- 
shod determination  to  have  his  own  way 
which  was  unnatural  in  him  and  disturbing 
to  him. 

"  And  I  'm  against  it.   That 's  what  he  is 
101 


HENDERSON 

really  trying  to  tell  you/'  Mrs.  Shore  said  to 
Henderson,  as  soon  as  Shore  had  finished  his 
story  of  what  the  state  leaders  up  at  Jefferson 
and  down  at  St.  Louis  expected  of  him  and 
for  him.  Shore  had  talked  in  a  dry-tongued 
voice  that  tinkled,  half  with  elation  over  the 
flattering  outlook,  and  half  with  sheer  phy- 
sical tension ;  and  his  wife,  leaning  back  in 
her  chair,  looking  from  Shore  to  Henderson, 
from  Henderson  to  her  father,  and  back  again 
to  Shore,  a  little  crinkling  play  about  the 
corners  of  her  eyes,  seemed  to  have  got  sup- 
plementary evidence  from  Shore's  recital  to 
strengthen  her  opposition  without  ever  once 
manifesting  any  nervous  alertness.  "I'm 
against  it,"  she  repeated. 

Shore  regarded  her  with  his  lips  jerking 
humorously.  "  She  thinks  politics  will  cor- 
rupt me,  Henderson." 

"  Tsst !  "  Henderson  made  one  of  his  little 
demurring  clicks  behind  his  teeth ;  "  if  poli- 
tics is  corrupt,  that 's  a  reason  for  going  into 
it,  not  staying  out  of  it.  Mrs.  Shore  would 
102 


THE  ROSE-RED   GLOW 

have  a  more  logical  reason  than  that,"  he 
said  waitingly,  a  little  heliographic  flash  of 
understanding,  swift  and  illuminative,  play- 
ing from  her  to  him. 

"Yes.  More  logical  than  that."  She 
nodded,  her  eyes  on  Hardin  Shore's  face. 

"  Well,  now,  what  ?  "  asked  Shore,  with 
that  affectionate,  badgering  tone  that  men 
are  apt  to  use  when  trying  to  draw  their 
wives  into  admissions  particularly  pleasing 
to  a  husband. 

"  Well,  it 's  logical,  but  selfishly  logical," 
she  said  evasively,  yet  Shore  was  insistent. 

"  Well,  say  what,"  he  urged. 

She  let  her  long  lashes  trail  on  her  cheeks 
a  moment  with  a  hesitancy  that  looked  es- 
sentially virginal,  yet  essentially  wifely,  and 
Henderson  noticed  how  perfectly  she  stayed 
his  dream-woman  even  here  in  the  strong 
white  light  of  the  library,  how  entirely  the 
woman  he  would  have  liked  to  have  raise 
those  lashes  upon  him  in  that  virginal,  wifely 
shyness.  Only,  when  she  raised  the  lashes, 
103 


HENDEKSON 

her  eyes  swept  past  him,  —  with  some  sort 
of  hidden  appeal,  he  thought,  —  and  sought 
out  the  other  man.  She  seemed  to  see  no- 
thing hut  the  other  man,  with  an  insist- 
ent loyalty  and  a  foreboding  comprehension 
that  took  in  all  his  deceptive  bigness,  his 
unsafe  tension,  the  bluish  whiteness  of  his 
temples,  the  little  flabbiness  under  his  eyes, 
the  strain  that  for  months  had  held  his 
mouth  back  from  the  expression  of  some- 
thing—  pain,  or  nervousness,  or  ambition 
—  that  distressed  him.  "  Well,"  she  began 
again,  haltingly  still,  "  it 's  that  I  don't  want 
to  divide  with  the  public.  I  don't  want  a 
public  man  for  a  husband ;  I  want  my  hus- 
band for  myself,  —  oh,  Hard,  you  know  it, 
you've  known  it  all  along."  Henderson 
knew  that  in  saying  this  she  had  somehow 
doubled  and  turned  on  an  original  purpose 
to  speak  her  entire  mind ;  but  her  tone,  the 
look  on  her  face  seemed  to  satisfy  Shore 
utterly.  The  strain  left  his  mouth  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  he  laughed  a  big,  glad,  complacent 
104 


THE  ROSE-RED   GLOW 

laugh.  Though  he  said  nothing,  it  was  ex- 
actly as  though  he  said,  "  Just  see  how  she 
loves  me/'  to  Henderson  and  to  her  father. 
His  satisfaction  in  what  she  had  said  seemed 
to  treble  by  the  presence  of  the  other  two 
men ;  he  seemed  to  hear  for  himself,  ardently, 
as  her  husband  ;  for  Penryn,  indulgently,  as 
her  father ;  and  for  Henderson,  —  well,  plea- 
santly, as  her  friend.  The  fine,  lasting  ro- 
mance of  their  relationship  was  heightened 
almost  unendurably  for  Shore  by  this  three- 
fold apprehension  of  it.  He  got  up  yearn- 
ingly, went  over  to  her,  touched  her  shoulders 
once  with  his  hands  lightly,  then  put  the 
hands  in  his  pockets  and  began  to  pace  up 
and  down  in  front  of  her,  after  a  habit  of 
his.  His  lips  shook  a  little,  and  his  brow 
tightened  and  relaxed,  tightened,  relaxed. 
Once,  a  keen  pain  twitched  across  his  face, 
and  Henderson,  flat  back  in  a  chair,  with  his 
hands  gripped  to  the  chair-arms  to  keep  them 
from  shaking,  was  not  too  self -concerned  to 
notice  it. 

105 


HENDERSON 

"Hard,"  began  Henderson  finally  in  a 
well-ordered  voice,  "  I  think  that  as  a  friend 
I  ought  to  say  to  you  that  you  would  better 
keep  out  of  politics,  and  as  a  doctor  I  say 
that  you  have  got  to."  Henderson  had  long 
since  come  to  the  point  where  he  could  say 
things  and  do  things  because  they  were  the 
things  to  say  and  do,  but  it  sometimes  seemed 
to  him  as  though  his  lax  voice  and  limp  body 
must  one  day  surely  betray  him ;  surely 
he  must  one  day  show  the  cheap  automatism 
with  which  he  went  through  the  saying  and 
the  doing  of  the  "  right  thing." 

"  Well,  but  now,  Henderson,"  commenced 
Shore,  his  unpersuaded  thought  finding 
expression  in  blunt,  downward  inflections  as 
he  phrased,  "  you  're  giving  just  an  off-hand, 
snap-shot  opinion,  aren't  you?  You  don't 
know  any  specific  reason  why  my  health 
won't  permit  of  my  going  into  politics  if  I 
want  to  go  into  politics,  do  you,  now?  Of 
course  you  don't.  You  've  hardly  looked  at 
me.  You  've  no  real  reason  for  warning  me 
106 


THE  ROSE-RED  GLOW 

off,  don't  you  see  ?  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  are  big  reasons  for  my  not  being  warned 
off  this  time."  Shore  paused  a  moment, 
gathered  up  his  forces  and  went  on  stub- 
bornly, "It's  a  chance  for  a  —  oh,  for  a 
sort  of  good  wind-up,  —  I  mean  a  sort  of 
crowning  to  a  man's  career, — and  my  heart  'a 
so  set  upon  it  that  I  can't  let  you  and  Lynn 
twist  me  about  the  way  you  usually  do,  — 
especially  when  you  have  no  reason,  —  you 
know  you  have  no  reason."  He  was  so 
vehemently  reiterative  that  he  seemed  to  be 
trying  to  push  Henderson  into  a  position  by 
the  force  of  his  insistence  that  Henderson 
was  in  the  position ;  and  he  seemed,  too, 
to  be  keeping  a  peculiar,  watch-dog  sort  of 
guard  on  Henderson,  on  his  wife,  on  himself, 
particularly  on  himself,  as  he  walked  and 
walked  and  walked.  "  Shucks !  Just  jumped 
into  an  assertion  without  any  reason,  — 
didn't  you,  Henderson,  didn't  you?" 

That  talkative  stubbornness  of  the  man 
brought  to  Henderson  at  last  the  complete 
107 


HENDERSON 

significance  of  his  stiff-necked  turning  from 
his  wife's  counsel,  his  desperate  clinging  to 
his  plan  for  a  political  career.  With  Shore 
politics  was  standing  out  as  something  that 
could  be  used  to  crowd  and  push  him  busily 
to  the  end,  the  end  to  which  disease  was  re- 
morselessly bearing  him.  That  was  Shore's 
whole  meaning,  pitifully  plain  to  the  phy- 
sician who  faced  him  in  the  peculiar,  con- 
scious stillness  that  had  settled  upon  the 
room. 

"Hard,"  said  the  physician  slowly,  "if 
you'll  raise  your  left  arm,  straight  up,  like 
this,  I'll  tell  you  my  specific  reason."  It 
was  a  brutally  kind  fashion  of  heading  Shore 
off,  of  letting  him  see  that  his  deception 
about  his  condition  did  not  deceive;  but 
Henderson,  bent  only  upon  saving  Shore  for 
the  woman  beside  him,  risked  it.  He  let  his 
hand  fall  back,  after  stretching  his  arm  up 
by  way  of  illustration,  and  then  sat  quite 
still,  waiting  on  Shore,  his  hands  just  touched 
together  at  the  finger-tips,  his  eyes  narrowed 
108 


THE  ROSE-RED   GLOW 

upon  Shore,  his  mind  quickly  aware  that  the 
woman  was  meeting  the  blow  exactly  as  he 
had  relied  upon  her  to  meet  it,  as  strongly 
and  as  quietly.  Shore,  attempting  confusedly 
to  turn  the  probe  of  Henderson's  insinuation, 
shot  his  arm  up  overhead  foolhardily,  only 
to  sicken  and  blanch  with  pain.  Half  reeling, 
he  turned  upon  Henderson,  "  You  —  you  — 
you  —  "  he  began,  speechlessly  beyond  con- 
trol in  his  leaping,  unreasoning  resentment 
at  the  exposure  and  miscarriage  of  his  plan 
to  keep  the  recurrence  of  his  disease  to  him- 
self;  but  the  woman  sat  on  unflinchingly, 
until  Shore  dared  look  at  her  and  move  over 
to  her. 

"  Did  you  think  I  did  n't  know,  Hard?  " 
she  whispered,  her  hand  finding  his.  "Do 
you  suppose  I  haven't  known  all  these 
weeks?" 

For  answer  he  went  down  on  his  knees 

beside  her  and  clung  to  her  and  cried  like  a 

child.    Lowry  Penryn  stole  hastily  from  the 

room.    Henderson  got  up  and  went  over  to 

109 


HENDERSON 

the  window.  Outside  the  rain  was  still  fall- 
ing. Its  cold  spats  alternated  with  the  sobs 
of  the  kneeling  man  and  the  caressing,  an- 
swering murmur  of  the  woman  :  "  To  keep 
your  sweet  life  so  close  to  the  shadow  because 
mine 's  got  to  keep  there,  —  oh,  I  wanted  to 
save  you,  —  I  wanted  to  keep  it  from  you,  — 
I  thought  if  I  got  busy  enough  I  could  keep 
it  back,  —  I  wanted  to  fool  you !  "  His 
broken,  tortured  words  were  just  audible  to 
Henderson. 

"  But,  Hard,  that  may  have  been  strong, 
but  was  it  fair,  —  not  to  count  on  me, 
shadow  or  no  shadow  ?  " 

Henderson  could  hear  her  words,  too,  — 
their  fierce  loyalty,  their  strong,  young  ma- 
ternalism,  the  choking  hush  of  her  own  wild 
rebellion.  He  turned  upon  them  purposefully, 
as  they  sat  together  under  the  bare  white 
light  that  shone  on  into  their  very  hearts. 

"Hard,"  he  said,  in  a  plain  voice  that 
eased  by  its  steady  pulling  back  to  the  every- 
day level  on  which  people  drank  coffee,  kept 
110 


THE   ROSE-RED   GLOW 

house,  bought  and  sold  and  chaffed,  "  Hard, 
I  don't  understand  what  this  is  all  for.  I 
can  see  that  there  are  some  dangers  ahead, 
and  that  to  avoid  them  you  've  got  to  follow 
the  right  course,  but  I  can't  see  what  you 
mean  with  this  morbid  conviction  that  you 
are  done  for.  Where  did  you  get  it ?  I'm 
willing  to  bet  that  it 's  auto-infection  with 
you,  —  I  '11  bet  that  you  have  caught  it  from 
yourself,  that  you  haven't  talked  to  a  soul 
since  I  went  away  !  But  even  if  you  have, 
and  have  been  discouraged,  I  want  to  tell 
you  that  there  isn't  the  practitioner  alive 
who  can  name  the  right  time  to  quit  hoping. 
What  have  you  quit  hoping  for  ?  What  are 
you  taking  yourself  as  a  dead  man  for,  when 
life  reaches  out  fair  and  straight  on  half  a 
dozen  sides  ?  "  Henderson's  first  perception 
that  in  his  absence  things  had  not  gone  well 
with  Shore,  that  Shore  had  managed  to  get 
into  the  full  swing  of  taking  himself  in  the 
wrong  way,  was  by  now  engulfed  in  the  force 
of  his  intention  to  oppose  this  new  current 
111 


HENDERSON 

of  discouragement,  to  stop  the  annihilating 
sweep  of  it,  to  get  both  Shore  and  his  wife 
safely  out  of  it. 

"  Oh,  Henderson,"  faltered  Shore  in  his 
dull,  beaten  tone,  "  I  got  so  tired  of  fight- 
ing. You  were  n't  here.  I  saw  I  was  done 
for.  I  just  decided  to  order  my  life  to  a  busy 
finish  and  be  done  with  it." 

"  Be  done  with  it !  "  retorted  Henderson 
angrily.  "  You  are  n't  done  with  it.  You 
don't  know  the  first  toot  of  Gabriel's  horn, 
and  you  could  n't  tell  your  summons  from 
a  dinner-gong.  Just  because  I  left  you  to 
yourself  a  little  while,  just  because  I  could 
n't  reassure  you  every  time  you  got  a  pin 
scratch,  you  scare  yourself  into  a  lot  of  fool 
ideas  ;  you  're  nothing  but  a  kid,  anyway  ; 
get  up  here  now  and  let  me  look  at  that  arm 
again,  —  likely  as  not  it 's  nothing,  some 
little  sympathetic  reflex.  Even  if  it 's  recur- 
rence, it 's  not  final.  Did  n't  I  warn  you  that 
we  might  run  against  snags  of  that  kind  for 

some  time  ?    Get  up  here."   He  hardly  knew 
112 


THE  EOSE-KED   GLOW 

himself  how  much  of  what  he  said  was  true 
and  how  much  was  made  to  seem  true  by 
the  force  of  his  intention  to  create  for  them 
a  mental  atmosphere  that  would  have  a 
beneficent  physiological  effect.  He  always 
recognized  himself  in  an  effort  of  this  kind 
with  any  patient,  but  especially  with  this 
patient,  as  an  hypnotic  force,  a  power  of 
healing,  not  as  a  man.  "  Now,  Hard,"  he 
went  on,  when  he  was  through  with  the 
examination  of  Shore's  arm,  "  I  can  fix  that 
in  just  one  little  half  hour.  I  admit  I  'd 
rather  it  had  not  lumped  up  there,  but  there 's 
no  death-knell  in  the  fact  that  it  has  lumped. 
Why  in  the  dickens  have  you  acted  like 
this  ?  Why  did  n't  you  wait  for  me  ?  " 

"  Henderson,"  —  Shore  turned  from  his 
wife  to  Henderson,  —  "I  was  afraid  you 
were  n't  coming  back,  in  the  first  place,  — 
that  got  me  uneasy,  —  you  know  I  don't 
believe  that  any  other  doctor  has  a  tea- 
spoonful  of  sense,  —  and  in  the  next  place, 
it  began  just  like  this  before  —  and  —  and 
113 


HENDERSON 

she 's  been  through  the  anxiety  of  one  opera- 
tion with  me.  I  can't,  I  won't,  let  her  life 
be  spent  in  the  strain  of  a  long  fight.  When 
I  found  this  thing  coming  back  I  —  well,  it 
just  came  to  me  that  I  'd  get  so  busy  with 
politics  or  something  else  that  I  would  n't 
notice  the  pain,  or  talk  about  it,  so  she 
would  n't  have  the  trouble  of  it."  His  heroic 
thought  of  her  now  mingled  queerly  with  an 
increasing  relief.  The  morbidity  that  had 
hung  over  him  for  weeks  had  been  broken 
up,  and  his  response  to  the  renewal  of  hope 
was  ingenuous  and  childlike.  "  It  was  mostly 
because  you  went  away,  Henderson,"  he 
said,  with  a  tremulous,  shamefaced  tearful- 
ness. "  Should  n't  have  got  into  this  fool 
mess  of  conviction  if  you  had  been  about. 
I  '11  be  all  right  if  you  '11  stay  where  I  can 
feel  you.  What  made  you  go  away  and  leave 
us  ?  Can't  you  stand  us  ?  " 

"Yes,   I've  made  up   my  mind  to  it," 
smiled  Henderson,  the  smile  and  the  words 
being  a  sort  of  bond  with  himself  as  well  as 
114 


THE  ROSE-RED  GLOW 

with  Shore.  "  I  '11  not  go  away  again.  And 
I  '11  get  you,  and  keep  you,  in  shape.  Only 
you  've  got  to  do  what  I  tell  you  to  do.  You 
have  got,  for  one  thing,  to  keep  out  of 
excitement.  You  can't  go  into  politics,  for 
instance." 

"  O  Lord  !  I  don't  care  a  hang  about  poli- 
tics except  as  a  thought-killer,"  declared 
Shore,  almost  blithe  in  the  reaction  from  his 
despair. 

"Well,  then,  if  that's  understood,  if 
you  're  going  to  become  good,  I  '11  be  off 
now,  and  come  up  and  arrange  about  that 
arm  in  the  morning." 

They  followed  him  out  into  the  hall,  both 
showing  their  utter  dependence  upon  him 
as  physician  and  friend.  "  By  George,  Hen- 
derson !  "  cried  Shore  at  the  hall  door,  "  I 
don't  see  how  we  could  live  without  you," 
—  one  of  Shore 's  hands  rested  on  his  wife's 
shoulder  and  the  other  pressed  Henderson's 
hand ;  —  "  honest  to  the  Lord,  I  don't  see 
how  we  could  live  without  you." 
115 


HENDERSON 

"  No,  I  don't  see,"  she  said,  in  a  mystical 
voice,  as  she  took  Henderson's  hand,  in  her 
turn.  The  rose-red  glow  from  the  hall  globes 
fell  full  upon  her. 

"  Oh,  there  are  plenty  of  doctors,"  laughed 
Henderson. 

"But  only  one  Henderson,"  said  Shore 
earnestly. 

"  Only  one  '  Henderson,'  "  she  repeated, 
her  lips  trembling  a  little,  but  with  that  gaze 
of  hers  which  expected  so  much  of  him  fixed 
steadfastly  upon  him. 

"  Well,  if  there  were  a  dozen  of  me,  I  'd 
be  yours,  all  yours  ;  always  rely  on  that." 
He  had  both  their  hands,  and  he  was  look- 
ing from  one  to  the  other  as  he  spoke,  and, 
as  he  spoke,  he  got  a  certain  happiness. 

"  I  'd  rather  have  my  sense  of  her,  her 
completeness,  than  another  man's  ability  to 
stand  another  woman's  incompleteness,"  he 
told  himself.  On  the  veranda  he  looked 
back  to  smile  at  them  before  he  stepped  out 
into  the  rain,  and  saw  her  there,  still  in  the 
116 


THE  ROSE-RED  GLOW 

glow,  the  other  man's  arm  still  around  her. 
"  It  is  not  the  glow,"  said  Henderson  softly, 
as  though  he  had  saved  something ;  "  it 's 
the  one  woman.    And  I  'm  glad  of  it." 
Then  he  went  on  in  the  rain. 


117 


IV 

THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  TANGLER 

THE  "Electric"  left  the  Fifteenth  Street 
Terminal  in  Kansas  City  in  the  yellow  dawn 
of  an  October  morning;  the  car,  with  its 
snub  nose  and  projecting  forward  cage, 
nosing  on  like  a  great  catfish  across  bridges, 
railroad  switches,  and  cross-streets  up  to 
Ninth  Street,  where  it  headed  toward  the 
town  of  Independence,  Mo.,  at  a  smooth, 
swimming  gait.  Just  beyond  the  Belt  Cross- 
ing the  motorman  glanced  back  at  the  con- 
ductor for  an  inquiring  half  second,  the 
inquiry  being,  "  Do  I  dare  ?  "  and  the  con- 
ductor flashed  back  at  the  motorman,  "  Sure, 
dare !  "  The  motorman's  eyes  were  shining 
and  the  conductor's  eyes  were  shining.  The 
car  began  to  go  faster.  Beyond  Sheffield, 
in  the  open  stretch  with  its  sprinkling  of 
country  houses,  the  speed  was  a  thing  to 
118 


THE  TKAIL  OF  THE  TANGLER 

question,  and,  quitting  the  rear  cage,  where 
he  had  been  talking  to  two  men,  the  con- 
ductor passed  through  the  car  to  the  motor- 
man  out  front.  Two  or  three  of  the  few 
passengers  aboard,  who  were  noticing,  were 
glad  to  see  that  the  conductor  was  disposed 
to  put  a  stop  to  the  motorman's  foolishness. 

In  the  forward  cage  the  conductor,  his 
breath  issuing  explosively  in  steamy  whiffs, 
was  shrieking  to  the  motorman,  "  Jimmy ! 
Mr.  Shore  says  a  hundred  more  if  we  reach 
Shore  Station  in  fifteen  minutes !  Let  her 
go  !  Let  her  go !  " 

Then  he  passed  back  through  the  car, 
humming,  to  hide  his  excitement  from  the 
passengers. 

"  See  here,"  said  an  uneasy  man,  pluck- 
ing at  the  conductor's  sleeve  as  he  passed, 
"  what 's  this  for  ?  Ain't  we  a-going  too 
fast?" 

"Fast?"  repeated  the  conductor,  with  a 
look  of  competency  betrayed,  "  fast  ?  "  He 
passed  on  haughtily,  but  turned,  on  some 
119 


HENDERSON 

charitable  impulse,  to  say  behind  his  hand, 
"  We  are  runnin'  on  skedaddle  time,  but 
that 's  an  expert  at  the  motor ;  need  n't 
worry,  no  matter  how  fast  we  go."  With 
that,  he  went  on  back  to  the  rear,  where 
the  two  men  were  waiting  for  him,  the  eyes 
of  both  burning  with  impatience  and  dis- 
tress. One  of  them,  a  big  fellow,  who  seemed 
to  carry  one  arm  with  a  little  nursing  care, 
and  who  looked  ill  despite  his  great  size, 
thundered  impotently  at  the  conductor :  — 

"  See  here,  Henry,  what  are  we  crawling 
along  like  this  for  ?  If  this  is  the  best  you 
can  get  out  of  this  damned  snail  —  " 

"Well,  I  tell  you,  Mr.  Shore,"  interposed 
the  conductor  soothingly,  "  I  '11  let  you  come 
through  and  stand  by  Jimmy.  Then  you 
can  see  how  fast  we  are  goin',  and  mabby 
that  '11  quiet  you." 

"  Let 's  do  that.  Let 's  move  up  there  in 
front,  Hardin."  As  he  spoke  the  slighter 
and  taller  of  the  two  men  stooped  for  a  medi- 
cine-case that  sat  at  his  feet,  and  with  the 
120 


THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  TANGLER 

case  in  one  hand  steadied  the  big  man  with 
the  other  until  they  reached  the  front  cage, 
where  they  took  up  positions  behind  the  mo- 
torman,  their  urging  for  speed  becoming  like 
the  crack  of  a  whip  about  the  motorman's 
ears. 

Ahead  of  them  Jackson  County  stretched 
into  the  pale,  gleaming  east  with  the  limit- 
less, dipping  roll  of  the  Missouri  country. 
Fields  where  the  corn  had  been  shocked 
stretched  off  on  the  right,  up  the  curve  of  a 
hill,  into  the  sky,  the  line  of  small  dun  stacks 
like  so  many  space-markers  to  the  watchers 
behind  the  motorinan.  The  tiny  red  station 
sheds,  the  gleam  of  the  silver-white  mail- 
boxes on  the  fences,  the  three  or  four  big 
houses  of  gray  stone,  the  numerous  natty 
houses  of  brick  and  shingle,  all  marked  space 
in  running  laps  for  the  watchers  behind  the 
motorman.  Woods  tipped  with  the  blood- 
red  sumach,  flaunting  hillside  sweeps  of 
golden-rod,  long,  lean  pastures,  switches  of 
rank  horse-weed,  —  all  were  etched  out,  clean 
121 


HENDERSON 

and  sharp,  against  the  eastern  light,  only  to 
be  succeeded  by  other  woods,  other  sweeps, 
other  pastures,  other  switches,  in  a  ceaseless, 
merciless  duplication  for  the  two  behind  the 
motorman. 

"  Great  God ! "  cried  the  big  man  at 
last,  "  there  is  no  agony  on  earth  like  wait- 
ing." He  forgot  the  trouble  that  his  lame 
arm  caused  him,  and  flung  both  hands  out 
in  front  of  him  helplessly. 

"  Careful,  be  careful,"  said  the  other 
man  warninglyj  "be  careful  with  your  arm, 
Hard." 

"  Careful,  nothing ! "  groaned  the  big 
man,  his  heavy  hands  working ;  "  what 's 
the  use  of  being  careful  about  me,  what 's 
the  use  of  anything  when  she  —  Now  here, 
Jimmy,  you've  got  to  do  better  than  this; 
we  're  walking,  walking  !  "  He  turned  upon 
the  motorman  vehemently. 

"  Well,  you  see,  the  road  being  so  full  of 
curves,  Mr.  Shore,"  —  began  the  motorman 
in  a  faint  demur,  but  letting  his  car  out  a 
122 


THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  TANGLER 

little  more,  his  eyes  straining  toward  the 
east,  his  muscles  tense  with  his  endeavor  to 
reach  Shore  Station  in  the  appointed  fifteen 
minutes,  —  "  road  being  so  full  of  curves,  I 
don't  dare  go  too  fast." 

"  Go  just  as  fast  as  you  do  dare,  Jimmy." 
Shore's  lips  shook  so  that  he  could  hardly 
talk,  and  he  turned  his  wide,  well-featured 
face  to  the  man  beside  him,  in  a  dumb  reli- 
ance that  seemed  to  be  habit  with  him.  Un- 
fortunately for  him,  just  at  that  moment  the 
look  in  the  other  man's  eyes  was  appalling. 
"  G-r-r-r-h !  It 's  no  great  comfort  to  look 
at  you  !  What 's  the  matter,  what  do  you 
mean  — "  The  words,  begun  as  a  cry  of 
protest,  were  beaten  into  a  hopeless  mumble 
by  Shore's  tempestuous  despair.  "  If  you 
give  up,  if  you  lose  hope,  you ! "  he  cried, 
and  the  other  drew  up  quickly.  His  face 
stayed  as  gray  as  wood  ashes,  but  his  tone 
was  quiet  and  his  eyes  were  steady. 

"  No,  oh  no,"  he  said  earnestly,  his  low 
voice  rich  and  warm  and  confident ;  "  it 's 
123 


HENDERSON 

not  that  I  have  given  up,  not  that  I  have 
lost  hope.  Only,  you  know,  I  have  not  seen 
her  myself,  I  have  had  to  take  your  impres- 
sion for  my  impression,  and  it 's  hard  to  wait 
till  I  see  her  and  can  get  my  own  impres- 
sion ;  that 's  all." 

"Oh,  it's  awful,  —  to  keep  riding  on 
and  on,  —  and  we  don't  get  there  at  all." 
Shore's  thought  was  submerged  by  his  tears, 
and  came  out  in  fragments  like  drowned 
flotsam.  That  he  was  dramatically  uncon- 
scious of  the  moment's  drama,  that  he  was 
as  simple  and  direct  as  he  was  big,  was  evi- 
dent from  the  loose  way  in  which  he  went  to 
pieces,  careless  of  appearances,  shaken  inside 
and  out  by  the  emotion  that  possessed  him. 
The  motorman  scratched  his  ear,  and  the 
other  man  looked  off  into  the  silver-yellow 
light  in  the  east.  "  I  ought  n't  to  have  left 
her,"  sobbed  Shore,  "but  I  couldn't  seem 
to  stay  in  that  house  any  longer  until  I  had 
you  there  with  me.  You  know  how  it  goes 
with  me  in  my  own  sickness  when  I  have  n't 
124 


THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  TANGLER 

you  about,  —  it 's  worse  now  with  her  sick," 
—  he  took  his  hand  from  his  eyes  and  sought 
the  eyes  of  the  other  imploringly. 

The  other,  as  though  beating  about  for 
relief,  began  to  ask  questions  that  had  been 
asked  and  answered  many  times  before  on 
that  same  morning.  "  When  did  Carey  see 
her  first  ?  "  he  undamped  his  teeth  to  say, 
and  while  his  arm  steadied  Shore,  he  was 
conscious  of  a  tremor  all  over  his  own  body. 

"  Why,  seven  or  eight  days  ago,"  answered 
Shore,  moistening  his  lips  and  leaning  nearer 
his  comrade  with  that  same  appeal  for  help, 
that  same  close  reliance,  that  same  gigantic 
helplessness.  "  This  was  the  order  of  things  : 
We  had  had  a  good  summer  at  Mackinac, 
after  that  last  seance  with  my  arm  in  the 
spring,  and  we  left  there  three  weeks  ago, 
she  and  the  boy  and  I,  all  well.  I  was  get- 
ting along  shipshape,  so  I  came  straight 
through  from  Chicago,  and  she  went  down 
to  that  forsaken  Illinois  town  of  Dixburn. 
She  has  a  married  friend  there,  and  of  course 
125 


HENDERSON 

she  was  interested  in  the  place  because  you 
had  once  lived  there.  Well,  she  stayed  there 
a  week,  and  came  on  home  with  her  head 
aching.  It  did  n't  quit,  so  I  brought  Carey 
out,  and  he  said  malaria.  And  though  that 
fool's  been  out  every  day  since,  he  never 
once  said  danger  till  last  night.  Last  night 
he  said  typhoid,  and  I  wired  to  Penangton 
for  you.  This  morning  she  —  Why,  why, 
she  does  n't  know  even  me  !  "  All  his  pro- 
found assumption  of  her  love  for  him  was 
patent  in  his  inflection.  "  I  could  n't  stand 
it.  You  don't  know  what  it  is  to  a  man  mar- 
ried like  I  am  to  be  without  her,  —  without 
her  spirit  —  "  He  stopped  trying  to  talk. 

"  And  Dr.  Carey  thinks  that  this  turn  for 
the  worse  —  thinks  that  she  is  in  danger?" 
Shore's  emotionalism  seemed  hard  on  the 
other  man,  whose  questions  clicked  out 
sharply. 

"  Why,  that 's  just  it, —  that 's  why  I  'm 
done  with  Carey,  —  told  me  to  be  prepared, 
—  aw,  I  can't  talk,  —  Carey  's  a  fool ! " 
126 


THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  TANGLER 

"  How  many  nurses  have  you  out  there, 
Hard?" 

"  Oh,  two  or  three  shifts  of  them ;  seems 
to  me  I  've  seen  four  or  five  girls  around." 

"  We  '11  let  all  but  one  go.  I  '11  nurse  and 
you  can  nurse,  and  we  don't  want  to  he  clut- 
tered up  with  too  much  checked  gingham 
and  white  apron.  How  nearly  there  are  we 
now,  Hardin  ?  " 

"  Just  around  that  curve  yonder.  Go  on, 
Jimmy,  go  on  !  Go  on  !  " 

The  motorman  yielded  helplessly,  and  the 
car,  obedient  to  his  daring,  all  but  leaped 
from  the  track  around  the  curve,  slid,  lock- 
wheeled,  on  a  down  grade  for  a  rod,  and 
stopped. 

Afterwards,  the  rush  of  that  ride  across 
country  always  stood  out  in  the  mind  of 
one  of  the  men  as  a  part  —  the  beginning 
—  of  the  longer,  doubling,  twisting  trail  over 
which  he  was  to  go. 

"  Thank  God  and  you,  Jimmy  !  "  cried 
Hardin  Shore,  and  he  and  his  comrade 
127 


HENDERSON 

leaped  through  the  gates  that  were  thrown 
open. 

"  Get  the  doctor's  case  there,  Tom,"  com- 
manded Shore  to  the  servant,  who  stood 
waiting  beside  a  light  trap  at  the  station  shed. 
"  Don't  let  that  nigger  tell  me  she 's  worse," 
he  snarled  on  in  a  stiff-lipped  agony,  as  he 
read  through  the  gloom  on  the  negro's 
face.  Hurrying  into  the  trap  beside  the 
doctor,  he  gathered  up  the  reins  in  his  well 
hand  and  guided  his  horses  across  the  car- 
track,  speeding  the  strong,  clean-limbed  ani- 
mals down  the  country  road  for  half  a  mile, 
without  word  or  pause,  then  up  a  long  drive- 
way to  a  stone  house. 

As  they  came  on  under  the  overhanging 
grove  of  young  walnut-trees,  the  yellow  light 
of  the  morning  sifted  through  the  leaves  and 
fell  upon  the  house  beyond  with  a  wan  illu- 
mination hateful  to  see,  and  the  prescience 
of  the  house's  disaster  lifted  like  a  visible 
thing  and  drifted  toward  the  men  in  the  trap, 
lodging  in  the  trees  overhead  with  a  low  and 
128 


THE   TRAIL  OF  THE  TANGLER 

mournful  rustle.  There  was  a  chilling  sense 
of  a  lost  presence  in  the  air,  a  sense  of  some- 
thing lacking,  something  that  had  vitalized 
and  irradiated,  whose  absence  left  an  oppress- 
ive emptiness.  At  the  corner  of  the  house 
a  group  of  negro  women  stood  in  frightened 
expectancy,  their  hands  working  in  their 
aprons.  Behind  the  women  some  small  black 
children  gaped  wonderingly.  The  fright,  the 
expectancy  were  hard  to  bear,  and  Shore  got 
down  from  the  trap  trembling ;  but  fright 
and  expectancy  were  acting  like  a  challenge 
upon  the  other  man,  whose  eyes  had  narrowed 
and  grown  steely,  and  whose  bearing  showed 
fight. 

Inside  the  wide  hall,  one  of  the  nurses 
came  noiselessly  to  meet  them.  "Yes, — 
seventh-day  crisis,  I  reckon,  or  fourteenth- 
day,"  she  whispered  to  the  physician,  and 
then  drew  Shore  into  a  chair.  "  Sit  there  for 
a  moment,  won't  you,  until  you  feel  better," 
she  said,  taking  charge  of  Shore  with  an 
expert  recognition  of  the  latent  invalidism 
129 


HENDERSON 

showing  plainly  now  in  the  drawn  lines  of 
his  face. 

"  That 's  right ;  don't  come  for  a  second, 
Hardin.  But  don't  be  afraid.  You  have  not 
lost  her;  you  are  not  going  to.  Wait  here  till 
I  send  down  for  you."  The  physician  went 
up  the  stairs  on  his  quick  feet,  and  passed 
into  the  typhoid  patient's  room.  Carey,  the 
doctor  in  attendance,  stood  at  the  foot  of 
the  bed,  looking  at  his  case  in  gloomy  help- 
lessness, while  over  at  the  window  one  of  the 
nurses  was  putting  crushed  ice  into  an  ice- 
cap. The  little  tinkle  of  the  ice  mingled  with 
the  murmuring  voice  of  the  woman  on  the 
pillow,  and  the  two  sounds  were  like  the 
tumbling  unrest  of  a  hill  stream. 

"  Can't  stop  that,"  whispered  Carey,  hold- 
ing with  relief  to  the  hand  of  the  newcomer, 
who  nodded  understandingly,  slipped  past 
him,  and  put  his  hand  on  the  woman's  hand, 
outwardly  the  physician  only,  perceiving  at 
once  the  crucial  signs,  the  thready  pulse, 
the  short  breathing,  the  hurrying  delirium. 
130 


THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  TANGLER 

With  his  ear  close  to  her  lips  he  caught  the 
words  :  — 

"  A  long  trail,  twisting  and  turning." 
Then  a  rhythmic  pause,  and  the  beat  of  the 
words  again  :  "  Don't  forget  Hardin,  he  will 
suffer  —  I  am  far  along  on  the  tangling  trail 
—  ah  me !  we  go  fast,  too  fast !  "  A  flicker- 
ing, frightened  cry  !  The  physician's  hand 
tightened  on  her  hand,  and  for  a  troubled 
second  she  was  quiet ;  then  her  eyes  opened 
staringly,  flashed,  and  steadied.  "  Garth ! 
Garth  !  "  she  cried,  and  tried  to  leap  up,  her 
eyes  wide  open  upon  his  eyes,  her  arms  Hf  ted 
to  his  shoulders ;  but  he  laid  her  back,  and 
held  her  with  firm,  detaining  hands,  a  sud- 
den illumination  upon  his  face,  as  wild,  as 
deh'rious  as  that  upon  her  own.  Little  by  little 
her  head  ceased  to  roll  upon  the  pillow ;  her 
lips  stopped  twitching,  and  her  thick  lashes 
drooped  till  the  eyes  beneath  them  were  quite 
shut.  Carey  came  around  softly  from  the 
foot  of  the  bed. 

"  Wonderful  past  any  'pathy,  that  touch 
131 


HENDERSON 

of  yours  !  "  he  murmured,  looking  down  upon 
the  woman's  hypnotic  calm.  Over  at  the 
window  the  nurse  was  watching,  a  trained 
blankness  on  her  face. 

"  She  will  have  a  conscious  moment  when 
she  rouses.  Will  you  have  Mr.  Shore  here  ? 
She  will  ask  for  him,"  said  the  doctor  in  low 
tones  that  glided  across  the  air  with  a  mu- 
sical suggestion  more  effective  than  a  com- 
mand. His  eyes  stayed  brilliant. 

An  hour  later  the  woman,  after  a  briefly 
conscious  interval,  was  sleeping;  Hardin 
Shore  sat  in  the  next  room  with  a  look  of 
hope  on  his  face ;  in  the  lower  hall  the  two 
doctors  were  talking  the  case  over  softly, 
Carey  telling  what  he  had  done  and  had  been 
just  about  to  do,  the  other  not  listening,  but 
acquiescing  and  approving,  all  after  the  dicta 
of  the  Code ;  in  the  room  assigned  to  the 
nurses  the  two  who  were  to  go  were  packing 
their  traveling-cases  in  open  rebellion. 

"Who-all  is  he,  anyway,  this  new  man, 
I  wish  you  'd  say  ?  "  grumbled  one.  She  was 
132 


THE  TKAIL  OF  THE  TANGLER 

the  girl  who  had  been  last  on  duty  in  the 
sickroom,  and  there  was  a  significant  resent- 
ment in  her  tone. 

"  A  country  doctor,  from  that  little  town 
of  Penangton  down  the  river  where  Mrs. 
Shore  used  to  live,  that 's  all  the  who,"  an- 
swered the  other,  equally  petulant ;  "  a  friend 
who  runs  the  Shores,  if  I  can  read  anything, 
—  sending  people  away  ! " 

"  And  what 's  his  name  ?  "  pursued  the 
first  speaker,  that  trained  hlankness  again  on 
her  face. 

"  Henderson." 

"But  his  first  name?" 

"  I  d'n'  know,  —  Garth,  I  believe." 

"  Oh,  I  see  !  " 

"See  what?" 

A  look  of  ostentatious  discretion  passed 
over  the  face  of  the  first  nurse ;  she  would 
not  say  what,  and  presently  the  two  went 
out  of  the  house  and  back  to  the  city  with 
Carey. 

The  people  who  were  left  ranged  up, 
133 


HENDERSON 

watchful  and  alert,  under  Henderson's  lead- 
ership, for  their  fight  with  the  fever. 

"It's  treacherous,  typhoid,"  Henderson 
told  Hardin  Shore  in  the  very  beginning; 
"  it  will  double  on  us,  it  will  let  us  hope,  it 
will  cheat  us,  it  will  lead  us  on  a  long  trail, 
the  old  tangler."  He  had  got  immediately 
at  the  woman's  notion  that  the  dizziness  of 
her  head  was  the  ceaseless  twisting  and  turn- 
ing of  an  aeriform  Something  that  flew  with 
her,  and  he  expressed  himself  with  an  uncon- 
scious assumption  of  her  fancy.  "  All  we  can 
do,"  he  told  Shore,  "  is  to  keep  up  with  it, 
keep  a  hand  on  it,  till  we  tire  it  out,  then 
pull  her  back  to  us." 

The  Shore  child  was  sent  away,  and  from 
morning  until  night  there  was  no  sound  in 
the  great  house,  save  the  coming  and  going 
of  careful  servants  and  the  low  whispered 
word ;  but  through  it  all,  up  to  the  day  of 
the  last  crisis,  the  household  having  re- 
sponded confidently  to  Henderson's  pre- 
sence, the  house  seemed  to  have  lost  its 
134 


THE   TRAIL  OF  THE   TANGLER 

prescience  of  disaster;  the  servants  smiled 
sometimes,  and  in  far  corners  of  the  grounds 
the  small  black  children  laughed  gayly. 

"  I  feel  that  I  'm  unfair  to  you,  a  regular 
burden,  Henderson,"  said  Shore,  who  stayed 
near  the  sickroom  helplessly  but  enviously ; 
"  still,  I  don't  know  where  to  begin  to  stop 
it.  I  'm  foolish  about  you.  I  want  you  to  be 
in  there  with  her  all  the  time,  and  when  you 
are  not  with  her,  I  have  to  have  you  with 
me." 

For  a  number  of  years  Shore,  through  his 
own  hard  fight  with  disease,  had  been  ex- 
pressing this  sort  of  dependence  upon  Hen- 
derson ;  for  years,  through  long  tests  of 
friendship,  he  had  been  utterly  trustful ;  for 
years,  through  blinding  mists  of  passion, 
Henderson  had  been  entirely  reliable,  en- 
tirely true  ;  for  years  the  woman  had  stood 
between  them;  until  now,  her  eyes  always 
insistently  upon  Hardin  Shore's  eyes,  her 
hand  sometimes  in  Henderson's  hand  in 
secure  friendliness,  a  delicate  protective  aura 
135 


HENDERSON 

playing  from  her  consciousness  like  a  lumi- 
nous ether,  through  which  Henderson  could 
not  look,  and  would  not  have  dared  look  if 
he  could. 

That  had  been  the  way  for  years.  But 
now,  out  on  the  red  range  of  the  fever,  had 
not  the  luminous  veil  fluttered  raggedly  back, 
and  for  once,  whether  he  would  or  not,  had 
he  not  seen  beneath  it  ?  "  Garth  !  Garth  !  " 
she  had  cried,  and  had  clung  to  him.  Was 
it  all  the  craziness  of  the  fever,  —  had  she 
not  known  him  f  The  mad  question  became 
a  companion  thing  of  that  hurrying  delirium 
of  hers,  leading  him  on  and  on  after  her, 
twisting,  turning,  coiling.  And  over  and 
over  he  put  his  hands  upon  his  shoulders  as 
though  he  must  push  in  deeper  the  burn  of 
those  hands  of  hers ;  over  and  over,  as  her 
eyes  opened  staringly  upon  him,  he  told  him- 
self that  the  question  reached  her  and  was 
answered,  that  off  on  the  devious  trail  of  her 
delirium  she  came  face  to  face  with  him  and 
knew  him  for  himself.  When  he  was  not 
136 


THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  TANGLER 

beside  her,  his  forehead  would  grow  cool,  and 
he  would  explain  the  whole  thing  to  himself ; 
remind  himself  that  the  revelations  of  delir- 
ium were  reliable  for  the  purposes  of  the 
pathological  novel  only,  not  for  any  honest 
weighing  of  things;  that  instead  of  being 
taken  as  signal  flashes  from  the  sub-con- 
sciousness of  the  patient,  they  should  be 
taken  for  what  they  were,  distorted  gleams, 
refracted  through  the  media  of  the  fever-hot 
brain-cells.  And  finally,  whatever  this  par- 
ticular woman  said  in  her  delirium,  the  fact 
remained  that  in  the  full  possession  of  her 
faculties,  she  handed  herself  and  her  great 
power  of  loving  to  her  husband  more  un- 
equivocally, more  fully,  and  more  beautifully 
than  any  woman  in  the  world.  —  Then  he 
would  go  back  to  her  again. 

The  cycles  went  by,  from  seventh  day  to 
fourteenth  day,  to  twenty-first  day,  in  the 
rhythm  of  the  fever,  and  as  he  sat  beside  her, 
ceaseless  in  vigilance,  meeting  the  disease 
symptom  by  symptom,  fighting,  nursing, 
137 


HENDERSON 

quieting,  a  strange  thing  came  to  pass,  —  he 
began  to  see  that  there  were  two  of  him  :  one, 
the  physician  at  the  bedside,  watching  the  zig- 
zag climb  of  the  fever,  his  hand  on  the  jerk- 
ing thread  of  the  patient's  pulse  ;  the  other, 
a  dreamer  who,  following  a  trail  daringly, 
found  what  he  sought  in  a  sublimated  free- 
dom overhead.  To  the  physician  below,  the 
woman's  broken  words  were  formless  and  void, 
but  the  dreamer  up  above  shut  his  soul  about 
them  and  made  life  of  them. 
'  "  I  must  be  going  !  "  she  would  cry. 
"  Are  you  here  ?  Are  you  ready  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  am  ready,"  he  would  say,  that 
mystical  quieting  force  of  his  in  the  smile 
that  he  turned  upon  her.  As  she  grew  still, 
he  would  talk  on,  without  the  spoken  word 
or  the  need  of  it :  "  Now  we  are  flying  free ! 
Now  the  trail  leads  us  higher,  higher  !  Now 
we  are  in  our  place  of  dreams  !  "  He  would 
He  back  in  his  chair  then  and  close  his  eyes, 
as  softly  as  hers  were  closed. 

"  That  Thing  went  fast  over  the  tangling 
138 


THE  TKAIL  OF  THE  TANGLER 

trail ! "  The  fever  would  be  heightening 
again. 

"  Did  you  get  tired  ?  "  he  would  say.  "  I 
never  tire  coming  up  here." 

Sometimes  the  physician  was  sorry  for  the 
dreamer,  thinking  of  the  awakening  that  was 
to  come,  but  the  dreamer  was  heedless.  It 
was  so  real  to  him,  he  followed  the  trail  so 
often,  that  it  came  about  that  he  recognized 
his  sensations  like  landmarks  along  the  way, 
—  the  first  uplif  t  of  his  spirit,  the  strength 
of  his  soaring,  the  tremulous  joy  of  finding 
her. 

"  The  end  of  the  tangling  trail,"  she  would 
mutter. 

"  I  am  here  at  the  end.  I  shall  be  here 
always,  always  waiting,"  he  would  insist,  a 
great  satisfaction  on  his  face,  and  would  open 
his  eyes  to  find  Hardin  Shore  standing  beside 
them. 

"  Asleep,  Henderson  ?  " 

"  No,  more  awake  than  ever  in  my  life." 

"  Is  she  better,  old  man  ?  Every  time  I 
139 


HENDERSON 

hear  you  speak  like  that  I  think  she  must 
be  better,  must  be  coming  back  to  me,  there 's 
such  a  joy  in  your  voice,  Henderson.  Is  it 
true  ?  Is  she  coming  back  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  she  is  coming  back,  not  quite 
yet  perhaps,  but  she  is  coming  back." 

"  What  is  it  that  she  repeats  like  that  ah* 
the  time,  Henderson  ?  Can  you  understand 
it?" 

"  It 's  dream-talk,  —  I  would  n't  bend  too 
close,  Hard  ;  it  disquiets  her.  You  will  hear 
only  fragments  about  the  tangling  trail  of 
the  Thing  that  flies  with  her." 

"  Keeps  muttering,"  repeated  Shore  wist- 
fully. He  put  his  great  hand  over  his  wife's 
hand,  and  she  opened  her  eyes  and  gazed 
at  him  for  a  moment,  then  some  bewildered 
effort  at  control  shivered  through  her  and 
she  lay  still. 

"  Oh,  get  away,  Hard !   That 's  bad,  that 's 

bad  !  "    Henderson  pulled  Shore  up  with  an 

irresistible  hand  and  drew  him  into  the  next 

room.    "  You   see,  Hardin,"   he  explained, 

140 


THE   TRAIL   OF  THE   TANGLER 

driving  himself  on  to  comfort  Shore  with  a 
singular  consciousness  that  the  woman  was 
directing  him  to  the  explanation,  "her 
thought  has  come  to  be  so  constantly  of 
saving  you  anxiety,  because  of  your  own  ill- 
ness, that  now  she  is  ill  her  chief  worry  is 
that  you  are  in  the  way  of  distress  about 
her.  It  is  n't  that  she  does  n't  know 
you ;  it 's  that  she"  does,  —  comprehends  just 
enough  to  be  trying  to  protect  you." 

The  grieved  look  on  Shore's  face  lifted. 
"  That 's  right,  you  old  conjurer,"  he  said. 
"Put  me  back  upon  the  thought  of  her 
love  of  me.  I  know,  —  trying  to  think  of 
me,  even  when  she  can't  think." 

From  twenty-first  day  to  twenty-eighth 
day !  In  the  blackness  of  that  last  night,  Hen- 
derson, the  dreamer,  passed  out  of  the  Shore 
house  into  the  grounds.  He  walked,  blindly 
anxious  for  motion,  over  the  soft,  thick  turf, 
with  its  shaggy  mat  of  leaves,  to  the  wall 
around  the  young  orchard  behind  the  house. 
The  night  was  in  the  deep  after-midnight 
141 


HENDERSON 

lull,  infinitely  quiet ;  but  Henderson  pressed 
his  hand  to  his  head  as  though  to  shut  out 
great  noises,  and  peered  out  into  the  dense, 
clinging  darkness  as  though  to  catch  the 
flight  of  something  that  swept  past  over- 
head. 

If  she  died  !  Foolish,  futile  thought !  He 
would  not  give  it  place ;  he  hurled  it  from 
his  mind.  She  need  not  dfe.  He  would  not 
let  her  die.  Had  it  not  been  his  again  and 
again  to  rescue  the  sick,  to  hold  back  the 
dying  ?  She  need  not  die.  He  knew  himself. 
He  was  not  afraid. 

And  if  she  lived !  His  the  power,  —  to 
bring  her  back  to  the  other  man,  to  bring 
her  back  now,  bring  her  home  from  the  wild 
trail  of  their  going,  from  the  high  realm  of 
his  fancy,  reestablish  her  in  her  old  relations, 
not  as  the  free,  flying  spirit  that  he  had 
known  in  that  upper  living,  —  ah,  God,  to 
do  that ! 

Across  the  black  quiet  of  the  night 
another  figure  was  vaguely  outlined  at  the 
142 


THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  TANGLER 

orchard  wall.  Shore  was  standing  there  for- 
lorn, one  foot  on  the  low  wall,  his  lame  arm 
across  his  knee,  his  eyes  burning  into  the 
darkness,  seeking,  seeking. 

"I  am  so  lost,  Henderson,"  he  groaned, 
as  Henderson  came  up  silently.  "  I  followed 
you  out  here.  I  can't  stay  in  that  house. 
You  see,  with  her  unconscious,  it 's  as  though 
she  isn't  here.  I'm  so  used  to  having  her 
here,  Henderson.  She  has  had  always  such 
power  for  being  here,  all  around  and  in  and 
through  me,  everything  that  a  man  needs  to 
round  himself  out  —  and  everything  else  — 
Henderson,  if  you  only  understood  what  I 
feel,  you  would  n't  let  her  go,  you  could  n't." 

"  Oh,  stop,  Hardin  !  " 

"  Time  and  again,  Henderson,  you  've 
interposed  that  will  of  yours,  that  power  of 
yours,  between  death  and  me ;  time  and 
again  I  've  felt  it  like  a  thing  to  touch  and 
see ;  time  and  again  you  've  kept  me  here 
when  I  should  have  gone  but  for  you." 

"  Hardin,  do  you  think  I  need  this  urg- 
143 


HENDERSON 

ing  ? "  cried  Henderson,  his  voice  ringing 
clarion  clear  in  the  night's  quiet. 

"  It 's  because  I  know  your  ability,  Hen- 
derson," went  on  Shore,  bungling  miser- 
ably, "  that  I  want  to  know  you  're  using 
every  ounce  of  it.  You  will  save  her  for  me, 
won't  you,  old  man  —  you  will  save  her  — 
forme?" 

"  Yes,  I  '11  save  her  for  you,"  answered 
Henderson,  with  that  final  assured  confidence 
which  he  always  used  to  compel  confidence. 
"  Come  on  back  to  the  house,  Hard.  It 's 
hour  by  hour  till  dawn  now."  He  put  his 
arm  through  Hardin  Shore's  arm,  and  they 
went  into  the  house  together. 

Back  in  the  sickroom  Henderson,  the 
physician,  took  up  his  vigil  again  alone.  He 
made  Hardin  Shore  wait  in  an  adjoining 
room  with  the  nurse,  and,  alone,  he  sat 
down  beside  his  patient,  the  weight  of  des- 
tiny in  his  eyes.  The  seconds  went  by  with 
a  little  clicking  catch  in  their  going,  marked 
by  the  flicker  of  her  breathing,  and  she  gave 
144 


THE  TEAIL  OF  THE  TANGLER 

no  heed  to  the  compulsion  in  the  physician's 
touch  upon  her  hand.  The  seconds  went  by 
with  a  little  clicking  catch  in  their  going, 
and  the  physician  became  the  dreamer  and 
began  to  talk  to  her,  urging  himself  far  out 
after  her,  covering  the  range  of  the  fever 
with  his  own  tenacious  swiftness :  "  Come 
back,  come  back !  We  may  not  stop  at  the 
place  of  dreams !  It  is  all  over  and  ended ! 
Come  back ! " 

Tossing,  rocking,  her  head,  with  its  great, 
tumbled  mass  of  soft  hair,  came  nearer,  and 
her  cheek  cradled  into  the  hand  that  he 
stretched  out  supportingly. 

"  Oh,"  she  cried,  "  the  end  of  the  trail  at 
last?  The  real?" 

He  put  his  hand  on  her  shoulder  gently. 
"  The  real,"  he  said.  The  last  of  all  reality, 
it  seemed  to  him,  the  finish  of  the  wild 
dream-fancies  that  had  been  for  him  so  long 
the  fullest  and  richest  reality. 

Her  eyes  opened,  shut,  opened  and  fixed 
upon  him,  her  tension  relaxing,  her  mind 
145 


HENDERSON 

clearing,  her  breathing  quieting,  the  mystic 
fever-cycle  ended. 

"  Why,  it 's  you,  dear  old  doctor-boy !  " 
She  had  come  back,  the  sane,  strong,  delicate- 
fibred  woman,  who  for  years  had  been  the 
flower  of  his  fancy,  the  root  of  his  morality, 
his  courage !  The  craziness,  his  and  the 
fever's,  was  a  thing  of  the  past,  the  mad 
aerial  journeying  was  over,  she  had  come 
back !  The  physician  was  sorry  for  the 
dreamer  as  Henderson  laid  his  hand  upon 
her  lips  and  looked  once  into  her  earnest, 
questioning  eyes :  — 

"  Don't  talk ;  you  're  back,  that 's  enough ; 
you  're  saved,  that 's  enough." 

"  It  was  good  of  you  —  to  save  me  —  for 
Hard,"  she  said  softly,  brokenly,  fast  grow- 
ing drowsy  again,  but  comprehending  still. 

Hardin  Shore  tipped  to  the  door,  his  wide 
face  lit  with  joy,  and  even  as  he  bent  and 
kissed  her  forehead  worshipfully,  his  wife 
was  safely  sleeping. 

Long,  quiet  days  followed,  and  at  the  end 
146 


THE   TRAIL   OF  THE   TANGLER 

of  one  of  them,  Henderson,  still  neglectful  of 
his  Penangton  practice,  sat  at  the  window 
across  the  room  from  her  bedside.  Hardin 
Shore  was  in  his  own  room,  sleeping  off  the 
exhaustion  of  those  weeks  of  anxiety  for 
which  he  had  been  so  ill  conditioned,  and 
the  nurse  was  out  in  the  young  orchard, 
methodically  measuring  off  her  evening  exer- 
cise. Beyond  the  window  the  sun  had  set,  and 
a  soft,  thickening  gloom  lay  over  the  room. 
Through  it  the  two  figures,  the  woman  on 
the  pillow  and  the  man  in  the  chair  by  the 
window,  were  barely  visible  to  each  other. 
She  lay  with  her  hands  above  her  head, 
the  new  thinness  of  her  face  softened  by  the 
fall  of  lace  from  her  wrists.  He  sat  in  his 
chair  with  his  head  thrown  back  wearily,  his 
fatigue  lifting  and  floating  away  like  a  gos- 
samer whenever  his  eyes  rested  upon  her. 
The  physician  had  remained  sorry  for  the 
dreamer ;  the  memory  of  an  illusion  is  hard 
to  bear. 

"  You  are  all  tired  out,"  she  said. 
147 


HENDERSON 

"  You  are  all  wrong,"  he  said.  * 

"  Do  you  hear  the  sleepy  things  outside?  " 
she  asked.  The  katydids  were  crying  and 
the  crickets  were  chirping  in  a  drowsy  re- 
moteness. "  It 's  strange  to  hear  things  and 
see  things  and  know  them  for  what  they 
really  are." 

He  glanced  at  her  comprehendingly,  think- 
ing to  let  her  know  that  he  understood  the 
little  shock  of  amusement  with  which  she 
was  finding  herself  again,  but  seeing  how 
beautifully  her  hair  lay  about  her  face,  and 
how  subtly  her  grace  showed  in  the  languid, 
swinging  movements  of  her  long  arms,  he 
was  not  sure  what  he  had  let  her  know. 

"  That  trail,  that  tangling  trail ! "  she 
began  next,  as  though  feeling  her  way,  and 
Henderson  sat  up  and  bent  forward,  his  eyes 
fixed  upon  her. 

"  Well,  what  of  it  ?  "  he  asked,  his  breath 
hard  and  short. 

"Well,  I  don't  know,  do  you?"  She 
smiled  at  him,  but  the  little  shaking  span  of 
148 


THE   TRAIL   OF  THE   TANGLER 

her  voice  showed  that  she  was  using  it  to 
bridge  some  chasm  that  yawned  before  her. 
She  raised  her  arms  and  let  the  laces  tumble 
more  thickly  about  her  face ;  then,  looking 
at  him  through  the  veil,  asked  in  an  uncer- 
tain flare  of  bravery,  "  Did  it  tangle  you, 
too?" 

He  leaned  forward  on  the  arm  of  his  chair 
and  his  glance  went  through  the  laces  to  her 
eyes.  "  Did  what  tangle  me  ?  " 

"  Why,  the  trail  that  we  followed,  —  did 
it  tangle  you,  too  ?  " 

He  had  a  sudden  impulse  to  candor,  abso- 
lute and  entire, —  "Then  there  was  a  trail 
for  you,  as  for  me ! "  he  cried,  "  and  you 
realized  —  "  He  stopped  in  that  impulse  to 
candor,  for  she  had  drawn  the  laces  closely 
about  her  eyes.  Seeing  her  do  that,  he 
dropped  back  in  his  chair.  "  I  understand," 
he  said,  "  you  need  not  be  afraid." 

"  No,  not  of  —  not  of  a  sick  woman's  fan- 
cies, need  I  ?  Need  you  ?  "  The  voice  quiv- 
ered, and  the  hand  above  her  head  closed 
149 


HENDERSON 

tightly.  "  There  was  one  fancy,"  she  went 
on,  as  though  to  an  appointed  task,  "  there 
was  one  about  —  the  place  of  dreams  —  at 
the  end  of  the  trail  —  where  somebody  — 
Hardin,  I  expect  —  always  found  me.  Did 
I  ever — did  I  ever  speak  of  that?"  Her 
intention  to  define  for  him  their  old  rightful 
relations  touched  him  like  an  accolade,  rais- 
ing him,  a  bewildered  knight-errant,  to  go 
whither  she  pointed. 

"  My,  yes !  "  he  answered  her  evenly,  "and 
next  you  would  cry,  l  Hardin  !  Hardin  ! ' 
and  we  should  have  to  scamper  after  Hard." 
The  laces  pressed  close  to  the  eyes  and  the 
tight  hand  relaxed.  "  Oh,  you  were  a  nui- 
sance about  Hard,"  went  on  Henderson  in 
a  resonant  tone  now,  his  eyes  lighting  up ; 
"  {  Hardin  !  Hardin  !  '  you  were  always 
crying." 

She  began  to  laugh,  tremulous  with  success 

under  her  laces.    "I  suppose  it  must  have 

been  like  that.    I  could  n't  always  tell  what 

I  was  doing  and  saying,  whose  name  I  was 

150 


calling,  I  was  whirled  about  so,  —  it  was 
such  a  long  trail,  that  old  tangler's.  But  if 
it  did  n't  tangle  you,  if  you  understand  —  " 
Her  slender  clasped  hands  were  raised  to 
him,  her  voice  swayed  to  him  with  a  fine, 
remote  music  like  a  wind-blown  bell. 

"  Yes,  I  understand.  And  it  did  n't  tangle 
me,"  answered  Henderson,  folding  his  arms 
and  striding  to  the  window,  where  he  stood 
for  a  moment,  a  lean  young  figure,  tall  and 
straight,  cleanly  cut  against  the  light  in  the 
west. 


151 


THE  WAY  OF  THE  STRONG 

FOR  the  five  days  of  big  wind  at  the  end  of 
the  March  blowing  of  1901  the  boom  across 
the  ploughed  land  on  the  bluff  farms  of 
Morning  County  beat  time  to  the  shrill 
whistling  in  the  timber  like  the  drone  bass 
in  pifferari  music.  It  was  a  grand  world  out 
of  doors,  the  sort  of  world  that  is  always 
unrolling  with  the  whirl  of  the  wind  in 
Missouri,  wild  and  gray  and  free.  In  the 
swales  the  tough  grass  dipped  and  rose  in 
shaking  circles  ;  on  lihe  hills  the  gaunt  trees 
went  like  flails ;  overhead  resounded  that 
whistling,  roaring  diapason.  The  sting  of 
the  air  was  like  a  whip.  On  the  bluffs  few 
people  braved  it.  In  the  hillside  pastures 
the  horses  battled  against  it  with  wide-nos- 
triled  whinny ;  and  the  cattle  ran  from  it  to 
the  shelter  of  the  hay-ricks,  heads  down, 
lowing  uneasily. 

152 


THE   WAY  OF  THE   STRONG 

At  Hogback  Hill,  —  the  foreland  tract  in 
the  chain  of  great  tracts  in  the  holding  of 
Lowry  Penryn,  of  Penangton,  —  Penryn's 
tenant,  a  tireless  farmer,  looked  out  on  the 
resistless  weather  in  the  mid-afternoon  of 
the  final  day,  took  the  horn  from  the  kitchen 
porch  and  sent  a  reluctant  winding  call  to 
his  hands  in  the  furrows.  The  hands  turned 
back  to  shelter  gladly,  and  for  the  rest  of 
that  day  the  fields  were  left  in  the  clutch 
of  the  storm,  while  the  men  sat  in  the  barn, 
tinkering,  mending  harness,  recalling  other 
storms. 

"  They  '11  be  lightning  to  come,"  said  one, 
who  stood  in  the  barn  door  watching.  "Hue- 
come  me  to  know  is  f 'm  that  yellowness  yon- 
der. Scampish-lookin'  clouds  over  tha'." 

"  'T  is  n't  to  say  cyclone-time,  though,  is 
it  ?  "  inquired  another,  who  had  come  from 
the  Northeast,  and  feared  the  ways  of  Mis- 
souri. 

"  Naw,  but  they  '11  be  devil's  own  light- 
ning," replied  the  old-timer  comfortingly, 
153 


HENDERSON 

and  added  that  it  was  well  to  be  indoors  on 
such  a  day.  "  Takes  town-fool  boarders  to 
resk  it  outside  !  "  He  breathed  the  last  words 
in  a  whistling  cadence,  his  lips  tightening 
condemningly,  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  two 
who  were  running  down  the  steps  of  the 
weather-beaten  front  porch  of  the  tenant's 
house. 

The  high-trunked  walnut-trees,  the  black- 
jack oaks,  and  the  silver  sycamores  tossed 
and  strained  sonorously  as  the  two  who  had 
come  down  from  the  porch  went  across  the 
damp  mast-weighted  grass  of  the  yard  at 
Hogback  Hill,  scurrying  like  children,  — 
the  skirts  of  the  woman  blown  out  in  front 
of  her,  her  slender  body  careening  with  the 
grace  of  a  ship  at  sea,  her  eyes  bright,  her 
cheeks  red,  —  the  man's  hand  on  the  wo- 
man's arm,  the  wind  raising  his  thick  black 
hair,  his  chest  expanding.  A  strain,  as  of 
watching  and  waiting,  that  sharpened  the 
faces  of  both,  slackened.  Whatever  cares 
oppressed  them  blew  away  for  the  moment 
154 


THE  WAY  OF  THE   STRONG 

on  the  \vings  of  the  wind.  The  youth  and 
vigor  in  both  were  keenly  triumphant.  As 
they  pitted  themselves  against  the  stress  of 
the  elements,  they  were  aware  only  of  a  glee 
in  their  own  valiance,  their  own  well-matched 
vigor.  A  recognition  that  they  were  splen- 
didly complementary  flashed  from  one  to  the 
other  as  he  seized  her  hand  and  they  were 
swept  on  to  the  yard  fence,  where  they 
leaned,  laughing  a  little  and  panting  hard. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  he  said  in  a  tone  which  seemed 
to  have  a  direct  reference  to  some  antecedent 
advice.  "  You  do  look  better  already.  You 
needed  fresh  air.  You  can't  stay  in  the 
house  all  day  much  better  than  I  can."  He 
had  not  released  her  hand,  and  she  drew  it 
from  him. 

"  I  can  stand  alone,"  she  said.  "  Yes, 
it 's  true  that  I  need  lots  of  outdoors.  Is  n't 
it  satisfying  !  "  She  threw  her  head  back 
and  watched  the  storm,  the  high  up-rolling 
of  the  clouds,  the  blown  grass,  the  hills 
where  the  great  trees  lashed.  "  That 's  what 
155 


HENDERSON 

it  does  for  me,  —  satisfies  —  by  expressing." 
There  was  a  leaping  joy  in  her  voice,  as 
though  some  deep  note  responded,  true  and 
strong,  to  the  storm. 

When  she  had  taken  her  hand  from  his 
he  had  folded  his  arms,  and  he  stood  now, 
unshaken  in  the  teeth  of  the  wind,  looking 
down  at  her,  his  great  love  of  her  hardly 
restrained.  "  Does  it  do  that  for  you,  too  ?  " 
he  asked,  understanding  in  his  voice.  His 
eyes  sought  hers  and  held  them.  Then,  as 
though  to  make  sure  that  he  understood,  he 
added,  "  By  expressing  what  ?  Satisfies  by 
expressing  what  ?  " 

"  One  hardly  knows  what,"  she  mur- 
mured, — "  the  things  that  fight  toward 
expression  in  one's  soul,  the  blown  weak- 
ness of  tears,  the  keen  strength  of  joy." 
Though  some  shadow  of  waiting  self-reproach 
lay  like  a  veil  across  the  light  in  her  eyes, 
the  light  was  there  and  the  words  swelled 
and  quivered  up  the  gamut  from  grief  to 
gladness. 

156 


THE   WAY  OF  THE   STRONG 

Watching  her,  he  drew  his  breath  in  with 
a  trembling  inspiration,  made  a  little  start 
toward  her,  and  turned  away.  The  moments 
of  intimacy  that  came  into  their  days  were 
too  life-laden.  "  Don't !  "  he  said  pitifully. 
"Don't!" 

"Don't?   Don't  what?" 

"  Don't  let  me  know  your  soul !  "  he  cried 
in  a  strange  earnestness  of  entreaty.  "  Keep 
me  out !  Keep  me  out !  " 

The  cry  was  the  cry  of  one  on  the  thresh- 
old of  his  own,  fighting  himself  back. 

Her  eyes,  frightened  and  storm-driven, 
sought  the  flying  clouds  again,  and  a  little 
silence  fell  between  them,  impenetrable  for 
a  time. 

"  Talk  to  me  of  Hardin,"  she  said  at  last, 
in  a  low,  reticent  voice.  "  How  are  we  to 
reconcile  him  to  the  loss  of  that  arm  ?  " 

Her  eyes  met  his  steadily  now,  all  that 
young  leaping  strength  of  hers,  body  and 
soul,  securely  controlled. 

"  Yes,  talk  to  me  of  Hardin," — he  caught 
157 


HENDERSON 

at  the  name  as  at  a  thing  to  pull  up  by  and 
stand  by.  "  Though  I  've  met  with  a  lot  of 
discouragement  with  him,  I  'm  bound  to 
admit  that  the  worst  thing  in  the  whole  his- 
tory of  his  case  is  this  final  apathy  of  resent- 
ment at  having  to  meet  the  future  disabled. 
All  his  hold  on  life  seems  to  have  lain  in  the 
grip  of  the  hand  that  had  to  go." 

"  Ah,  Hard  was  so  big  and  whole !  He 
has  reveled  so  in  his  strength,  been  so  vain 
in  the  thought  of  it,  —  his  poor  old  pride  is 
so  hurt,  don't  you  see  ?  "  she  explained. 

"  Yes,  I  see.  He  is  getting  restless  again, 
have  you  noticed  ?  We  have  had  him  down 
here  nearly  a  week.  That's  doing  pretty 
well.  What  next  ?  Shall  you  take  him  back 
to  Kansas  City?" 

"  No,  to  Penangton,  I  expect.  He  likes  to 
be  near  you.  You  can  stand  it,  can't  you? 
Now,  as  always,  his  chance  seems  to  lie  with 
you." 

"  His  chance  is  good.    Don't  forget  that. 
He  is  still  strong.    We  shall  save  him  yet." 
158 


THE  WAY  OF  THE   STRONG 

She  looked  off  toward  the  house,  where 
she  could  see  a  man  who  waited  for  them  at 
a  window.  He  had  one  arm  through  the 
sleeve  of  a  velvet  jacket,  and  the  other  sleeve 
of  the  jacket  hung  empty  from  the  shoulder, 
but  he  sat  up  stockily  and  looked  out  upon 
the  storm.  .When  he  saw  that  the  woman's 
eyes  sought  his,  he  raised  his  arm  in  saluta- 
tion and  smiled  a  halting,  absent  smile.  She 
lifted  her  hand  and  waved  to  him,  then 
clasped  both  arms  about  her  own  body. 
"  Oh,  if  I  were  not  so  much  alive !  It 's  a 
crime  with  Hardin  like  that,  —  let 's  go  back 
to  him,  let 's  go  back ! "  she  cried,  with  a 
tumultuous  rush  of  sorrow,  and  the  two 
started  again  across  the  yard  together. 

The  man  at  the  window  lay  back  on  his 
chair  and  watched  them  come  up  the  trough 
of  the  wind,  his  thoughts  surging  toward  the 
woman.  "  Ah,  yes,  you  !  You  're  something 
to  keep  a  man,  —  but  you  are  whole,  —  and 
I  —  lying  here  in  these  bandages  —  dying 
limb  by  limb,  like  a  tree,  —  God !  It 's  hardly 
159 


HENDERSON 

the  way  of  the  strong."  He  looked  down 
upon  the  bandaged  rigidity  of  his  trunk  and 
groaned.  The  strong !  That  was  what  he 
had  been  all  his  vigorous,  successful  life,  — 
powerful,  intact.  He  had  come  up  out  of  the 
strength  of  a  sturdy,  barefooted  childhood, 
on  into  the  strength  of  a  muscle-hardened, 
poverty-urged  boyhood,  on  into  the  strength 
of  a  seasoned  manhood,  that  had  overcome 
the  circumstances  of  birth,  wrested  wealth, 
wife,  and  happiness  from  fate,  —  conquered, 
after  the  fashion  of  the  strong.  And  here, 
at  the  end  of  it  all,  he  was  back  in  the  home 
of  his  childhood,  whither  he  had  crept  to 
hide  from  his  conquered  world,  while  he 
sought  the  strength  to  accustom  himself  to 
himself  as  maimed,  as  incomplete.  He  was 
seeking  that  new  strength  still,  braced  against 
his  wife  and  his  physician ;  seeking,  but  not 
finding  it.  The  marks  of  his  inability  to  find 
it  had  seared  his  face  deep  these  past  few 
weeks.  As  he  waited  for  the  woman  to  come 
to  him,  his  defeat,  his  admission  that  his  was 
160 


THE   WAY  OF  THE   STRONG 

battle  strength,  the  strength  to  act,  not  to 
stand  and  endure,  lay  plainly  upon  him. 

On  the  weather-beaten  porch  again,  the 
woman  and  the  man  stopped  for  a  moment. 
The  glow  was  dying  from  her  face.  She 
looked  anxious,  burdened,  as  she  turned  to- 
ward him.  "It's  very  good  — "  she  hesi- 
tated as  though  the  wind  swept  the  words 
from  her  lips,  and  she  swayed  a  little  toward 
him.  If  he  had  willed  it,  he  could  have 
touched  her  hair  with  his  lips. 

"Yes?  "he  asked. 

"  —  good  to  have  you  stand  by  us,  —  it 's 
a  hard  place  to  stand  in,  I  know  that."  Her 
tone  was  full  of  a  divine  sympathy. 

"A  hard  place,  but  a  high  place,  —  am 
I  failing  you  ?  " 

A  flash  of  glad  light  came  over  her  face. 
"  Oh,  no,  you  are  not  failing  me,  —  being 
you,  you  could  not  fail  me ! "  she  cried  softly, 
her  very  confidence  in  him  beating  like 
waves  about  him. 

He  opened  the  outer  door  for  her  quickly, 
161 


HENDERSON 

and  she  went  quickly  by  him  to  the  door  of 
her  own  room. 

"  Stay  with  Hardin  a  minute,  will  you  ?  " 
she  asked,  as  she  disappeared  through  her 
door,  and  he,  passing  on  into  the  sick  man's 
room,  was  greeted  listlessly  :  — 

"Well,  Henderson,  couldn't  stand  the 
storm?" 

"  Yes,  —  oh,  yes,  we  stood  it." 

"  We  can  blow  in  Missouri,  when  the  no- 
tion takes  us,  huh  ?  "  went  on  the  sick  man, 
his  voice  blank,  his  little  effort  at  friendly 
conversation  a  futile  chipping  at  the  shell  of 
despondency  about  him. 

"  It 's  a  monster  wind."  Henderson  mani- 
fested a  fresh  interest  in  the  barren  topic, 
so  different  from  the  other's  lifelessness  as 
to  suggest  that  the  one  was  determinedly 
opposed  to  the  other.  "  The  farm  here  gets 
the  full  force  of  it,  Hard.  Wonder  how 
your  pioneer  ancestors  ever  happened  to 
select  this  bleak  foreland  to  pitch  crops 
on?" 

162 


THE  WAY  OF  THE   STRONG 

"  Lord !  "  —  intermingled  with  an  invalid's 
querulousness  was  a  little  of  that  interest  for 
which  the  physician  was  playing,  —  "  pitched 
here  because  they  could  reap  here,  —  black 
land  this." 

"  You  spent  nearly  all  your  boyhood  here, 
did  n't  you,  Hard?" 

"  Mighty  near  it,  —  good  times  those, 
Henderson,"  —  he  sat  up  and  looked  out 
over  the  distant  hills  where  the  wind  swept 
and  harried.  "  Very  good  times.  And  it  's 
queer,  is  n't  it,  how  old  times,  old  places  call 
and  call  to  a  fellow.  From  the  very  minute 
that  I  heard  that  Lynn's  father  had  added 
this  farm  to  his  holdings,  though  I  'd  forgot- 
ten the  place  for  years,  why,  nothing  for  it, 
but  what  I  must  get  back  here  and  remem- 
ber my  beginning.  I  was  born  in  that  room 
there,"  —  he  twisted  his  head  over  his  shoul- 
der, with  a  jerk  toward  the  tenant's  dining- 
room.  "  And  look  here,"  —  he  waved  his 
hand  toward  the  window,  —  "  see  the  road 
over  the  hill  from  the  river  ?  Many  's  the 
163 


time  I  Ve  tramped  it  to  school  with  my  din- 
ner-pail on  my  arm  and  mighty  precious  little 
in  the  pail."  He  kept  his  eyes  on  the  yellow 
road  winding  uphill  in  the  distance  tiU  the 
fugitive  interest  passed  from  his  face  and  was 
replaced  by  the  melancholy.  "  But  somehow, 
Henderson,  when  I  indulge  in  sympathy  for 
myself,  't  is  n't  that  hungry  youngster  I  'm 
sorry  for, — it's  this  one-armed  lumpkin," 
—  his  voice  choked  with  the  thought  of  the 
significance  of  his  disaster,  and  he  stopped. 
Henderson  moved  up  a  little  nearer  silently, 
and  the  bitter  words  began  again.  "  That 
hungry  boy  had  everything  ahead  of  him, 
Henderson,  and  the  gnawing  in  his  stomach 
was  to  him,  with  his  kind  of  strength,  nothing 
worse  than  another  prod  onward.  He  had 
everything  to  do  and  every  reason  to  do, 
and  he  was  fully  equipped  to  do  it.  I  sup- 
pose, Henderson,  I  'd  get  along  better  now 
if  there  was  n't  so  much  behind  me,  if  there 
was  anything  left  ahead  of  me  that  needed 
doing."  That  battle  strength  within  him, 
164 


THE  WAY  OF  THE  STRONG 

that  impulse  toward  activity,  roused  and 
beat  against  the  bars  of  his  invalidism,  but 
Henderson,  welcoming  any  change  from 
apathy,  let  him  continue.  "  I  could  fight 
with  one  hand,  Henderson,  if  there  was  any- 
thing to  fight  for  —  anything  left  —  " 
"  Hard !  There  's  a  big  thing  left !  " 
"  Oh,  I  know  what  you  mean,  Henderson, 
but  I  don't  have  to  fight  for  that,  do  I  ? 
She  's  mine  already,  is  n't  she  ?  I  want  some- 
thing to  fight  for.  I  don't  have  to  fight  for 
her,  I  have  her,  if  ever  a  man  had  anything 
on  this  earth.  What  do  you  expect,  then? 
Can  a  fellow  like  me  rock  back  on  his  wife's 
love  and  his  love  of  her,  and  end  his  days 
watching  himself  go  to  pieces  ?  You  expect 
that  of  me  ?  You  need  n't.  I  have  to  do 
things.  I  don't  know  how  to  stand  things 
any  better  than  a  baby.  You  don't  know 
what  you  are  talking  about  when  you  ask  it, 
Henderson.  When  did  you  ever  endure? 
You  could  n't  any  better  than  I  can,  —  and 
I  can't  at  all !  "  He  got  up  from  his  chair. 
165 


HENDEESON 

"  God !  I  'm  a  crying  failure  at  it.  If  I 
had  n't  been  a  strong  man,  Henderson,  — 
but  I  've  lived  the  life  of  the  strong, — 
why,  with  that  old  arm  that 's  gone  I  've 
lifted  and  carried  what  two  men  couldn't 
budge,"  —  his  face  lit  with  a  momentary 
gleam  of  satisfaction  ;  —  "  why,  Henderson, 
in  the  old  days,  in  log-rolling  time,  I  used  to 
make  big  Jim  Bard's  eyes  stick  out  an  inch 
by  what  I  could  do,  and  before  me  Jim  was 
the  strong  man  in  these  parts.  Why,  I  could 
roll  aU  day.  And  I  was  the  stoutest  man  at 
a  hand-spike  you  ever  saw.  Why,  just  feel 
that  muscle  even  yet,  huh  ?  —  ain't  that 
a  lump  !  "  There  was  something  infinitely 
pathetic  in  this  braggadocio  about  his  past 
that  was  stopping  for  a  moment  the  thought 
of  his  future.  "  Muscle-wrapped  giant  that 
I  was,  —  and  now  maimed,  not  ah1  here.  No, 
I  shan't  stop,  Henderson.  Question  with  me 
has  come  to  be  whether  you  had  the  right 
ever  to  stop  me,  —  a  doctor  may  take  too 
much  on  himself,  —  patching  a  patient  to- 
166 


THE  WAY  OF  THE   STRONG 

gether  when  he'd  better  go  to  pieces,  —  a 
strong  man  does  n't  want  to  live  beyond  the 
day  of  his  strength,  —  what 's  life  to  mean 

• 

to  me  now,  —  going  leg  by  leg,  arm  by  arm, 
—  aw,  don't  talk,  —  you  've  missed  your 
prognosis  before,  —  I  know  that 's  the  way 
I  '11  go ;  what  have  you  done  this  thing  for, 
anyway  ?  I  'm  not  so  essential  to  you,  am  I, 
that  you  should  have  held  on  to  me  and 
fought  death  away  from  me  all  these  years  ? 
I  'd  have  been  finished  and  good  riddance, 
long  ago,  if  it  had  n't  been  for  you !  " 

Face  to  face  with  the  physician's  tragedy 
of  a  patient's  reproach,  Henderson  was  con- 
scious only  of  vindication.  "  It  was  for  her, 
Hardin,  for  her.  She  wanted  you  saved; 
maimed  or  halt  or  blind,  she  wanted  you 
saved." 

The  words  came  on  to  the  sick  man  like 
an  arrow  to  the  mark.  He  bowed  his  head 
against  the  window,  and  his  rage  lulled. 

"  Whatever  I  've  done  for  you,  I  've  done 
for  her,"  insisted  Henderson ;  and  then, 
167 


HENDERSON 

seeing  that  Shore's  wife  stood  questioningly 
at  the  door,  her  face,  with  its  sharp  lines  of 
suffering  and  strain,  turned  toward  him,  he 
beckoned  her  to  his  place,  and  stole  from  the 
room. 

She  came  up  to  Shore  and  laid  her  hand 
upon  his  arm.  "  Ah,  yes,  you  ! "  he  mur- 
mured, putting  his  arm  about  her.  "  You 
promised  to  stay  away  and  exercise  and  rest 
for  a  full  half  hour."  He  tried  hard  to  main- 
tain his  control  of  the  discord  within  him, 
holding  her  a  little  way  from  him  and  look- 
ing down  upon  her  lovingly,  for  all  the  strife 
on  his  face. 

"  Yes,  but  you  see,  I  get  restless  away 
from  you." 

"  Awful  baby  about  me,  are  n't  you,  — 
are  n't  you  now,  for  a  woman  who  has  been 
married  to  me  for  years  ?  "  The  old  egoistic 
raillery  slipped  from  his  lips,  as  she  drew 
him  to  a  chair,  where  she  knelt  beside  him, 
her  young  arms  about  him.  He  laughed,  a 
little  pleased  growl,  as  she  held  him  to  her. 
168 


THE  WAY  OF  THE   STRONG 

"  Well,  I  like  it  better  with  you  than  out 
in  the  storm,"  she  said.  "  It  was  wild  out 
there.  This  is  safer." 

"  You  had  Henderson  with  you,  —  did  n't 
Henderson  take  good  care  of  you  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  had  him.  Yes,  he  took  good 
care."  He  could  feel  the  soft  acquiescent 
motion  of  her  cheek  against  his  face. 

"  Guess  you  are  safe  enough  with  Hen- 
derson." 

"  Yes."  She  rocked  back  on  the  firm 
support  his  big,  muscle-corded  arm  gave  her. 
"  I  'm  glad  we  have  this  arm,"  she  said, 
nesting  her  head  against  it  comfortably. 
"  Yes,  I  'm  safe  enough  with  Henderson." 
She  smiled  into  his  eyes  as  she  added,  "  Hen- 
derson can  hold  the  storm  in  hand,  of 
course ; "  and  he  missed  her  deeper  meaning, 
but  met  her  banter  with  a  chuckle  that  had 
in  it  something  of  his  natural  spontaneity. 

"  We  think  Henderson  can  do  a  plenty, 
don't  we  ? "  he  assented. 

"  He  has  done  so  much  ! "   She  pressed 
169 


more  closely  to  him,  and  the  answering  clasp 
-of  the  arm  about  her  made  the  bandages 
across  his  chest  strain  for  a  moment.  "  He 
has  saved  you  for  me  over  and  over.  He 
has  done  so  much,  —  say  it." 

"  Yes,  yes,  — if  just  being  alive  is  much." 
His  tone  was  flat  and  dull  again,  and  his 
eyes  slanted  from  the  head  on  his  breast  to 
his  armless  shoulder.  "  But,  Lynn,  what  I 
am  having  to  meet  and  down  now  is  whether 
or  no  being  alive  is  anything  at  all.  You 
know  I  Ve  been  a  man  for  effort  on  the 
outside.  What  am  I  to  do  for  the  rest  of 
my  days  besides  fight  disease  ?  Develop  my 
character  ?  I  'm  a  sweet  creature  to  start 
in  to  calcimine  my  inside  life  with  ethical 
enameline,  ain't  I?  I  can't  live  inside. 
You  know  that.  What  am  I  to  do,  honey  ?  " 

All  his  sense  of  defeat,  his  pride  in  his 
old  life,  his  blank  inability  to  get  hold  of 
another  life,  beat  into  the  question  and 
tolled  up  to  her  like  a  knell. 

"  But  I  have  to  have  you,  Hardin  !  That 's 
170 


THE  WAY  OF  THE   STRONG 

something.  It  might  easily  be  a  pur- 
pose—  " 

"  Ah,  but  do  you  ?  "  he  cried,  on  a  sud- 
den impulse  to  get  at  the  bare  truth  of  every- 
thing. "  You  are  young,  sound,  whole.  Do 
you  really  want  me, — ah,  there  !  there  !  I 
know,  I  know !  "  —  he  veered  swiftly  be- 
cause of  the  fright,  the  appeal  on  her  face. 
"  You  could  n't  go  on  without  me.  I  guess 
there  would  n't  be  anything  ahead  for  you. 
There  would  n't  be  anything  ahead  for  me 
without  you,  no  matter  how  many  arms  were 
left  me.  I  could  n't  live  without  you.  And 
you  can't  live  without  me.  That 's  it,  is  it  ?" 

"  Yes,  that 's  it,"  she  cried  chokingly. 
"  I  could  n't  face  the  future.  I  should  feel 
that  somehow  it  was  all  my  fault,  that  if  I 
had  been  everything  I  might  have  been,  you 
would  not  have  gone.  Anybody  who  is  left 
must  feel  like  that,  I  think.  Ah,  Hardin, 
stay  with  me,  —  want  to  stay ! "  She  threw 
her  arms  about  him  and  clung  to  him.  Her 
abandon,  her  forgetfulness  of  his  crippled 
171 


HENDERSON 

shoulder  made  him  wince  with  a  pain  that 
was,  all  the  while,  a  joy.  She  had  triumphed 
again;  she  had  brought  life  back  to  him 
again ;  her  presence  had  softened  and  en- 
livened his  thought  again,  and,  conquered, 
he  let  his  head  rest  upon  hers,  while  he 
peered  out  timidly  upon  the  new  life. 

Henderson  came  back  presently  and  found 
them  like  that,  and  Shore  greeted  him  with 
a  note  of  the  old  boyish  pleasantness  of  tem- 
per; a  forced  note,  but  welcome,  for  all  that, 
to  the  two  who  had  been  for  so  long  trying 
to  make  him  put  out  that  kind  of  effort. 

"  Well,  Henderson,  here  goes  for  a  fresh 
start."  Shore  let  his  arm  slip  from  his  wife, 
and  got  to  his  feet  as  though  he  would  take 
hold  of  life  anew  single-handed.  "  You  two 
keep  at  a  fellow  so  eternally,  there 's  nothing 
to  do  but  do  as  you  say.  Live,  you  say.  All 
right,  I  '11  live.  I  '11  fight  to  live.  I  don't 
want  to,  but  I  '11  do  it,  I  '11  work  for  it,  just 
for  you  two."  He  began  a  nervous  pacing 
to  and  fro,  the  strength  that  was  in  him 
172 


THE   WAY  OF  THE   STRONG 

urging  him  into  some  kind  of  activity,  how- 
ever unsatisfying. 

"  Sit  down,  old  man,  sit  down  !  " 
"Oh,  my  God,  Henderson,  I  can't  sit 
down.  I  'm  reconstructing  myself.  I  need 
some  room.  Look  at  the  power  of  that  wind 
in  the  trees,  — it 's  the  kind  of  thing  that 's 
shaking  me.  Here,  I'm  going  out  on  the 
porch  a  minute  to  watch  that  wind,  to  feel 
it.  It  helps.  Yes,  I  am.  You  've  both  been. 
Did  n't  hurt  you.  Now  I  'm  going." 

In  rousing  him  at  all  they  had  taken  the 
risk  of  over-keying  him,  and,  at  high  tension, 
a  paroxysm  of  nervousness  upon  him,  he 
passed  out  on  the  porch,  the  other  two  be- 
hind him,  powerless  to  oppose  the  strength  of 
his  mood.  "  Ah,  this  is  better,  better ! "  he 
cried,  sending  his  voice  out  into  the  sweep  and 
roar  of  the  storm.  The  wind  had  increased 
in  violence  and  tore  over  the  hills  now 
with  the  howl  of  wolves.  The  air  was  shot 
through  with  electricity,  and  streaks  of  gold 
and  blue  played  out  of  the  slate-black  sky. 
173 


HENDERSON 

At  the  barn  door  the  farm-hands  clustered 
anxiously.  "  Look  at  that !  Look  at  that !  " 
cried  one  suddenly,  and  stretched  out  a  long 
hairy  arm,  whose  crooked  forefinger  pointed 
down  the  yard. 

"  The  sick  man  !  Gord,  he  's  crazy  !  " 
Hardin  Shore,  that  unbearable  nervous- 
ness still  upon  him,  had  gone  down  into  the 
yard,  rejecting  warning  and  remonstrance, 
after  the  manner  of  convalescence.  Coatless, 
bareheaded,  he  forged  into  the  storm,  his 
eyes  eager  with  the  stimulus  of  the  air,  a 
fine  free  mood  triumphing  over  his  despond- 
ency. "  Oh,  I  'm  all  right  now,"  he  cried  to 
the  two  who  followed  him,  and  he  threw  off 
Henderson's  hold  impatiently.  "  I  'm  no  sick 
man,  Henderson.  Don't  hold  me  back.  I  'm 
well  again.  No,  I  won't  go  in.  No,  I  won't 
take  care !  No,  I  won't  do  one  damn  weak 
thing  for  at  least  five  minutes.  Whew,  that 
wind  !  No  Missourian  ever  forgets  the  thrash 
of  it !  "  The  up-welling  strength  within  him 
communicated  its  inspiration  to  the  two  be- 
174 


THE  WAY  OF  THE  STKONG 

side  him,  and  they  stopped  trying  to  restrain 
him,  smiling  at  him,  letting  him  have  his 
way.  "  This  is  the  right  sort  of  thing,"  he 
cried  ;  "  this  is  living.  You  want  to  put  life 
into  me  ?  This  does  it.  Give  me  something 
on  the  outside  to  stand  up  against." 

He  pushed  up  a  high  knoll,  crowned  by 
one  giant-trunked,  lean  walnut,  storm-tossed 
but  invincible,  and  they  came  on  after  him. 
At  the  feet  of  the  beetling  bluff  the  Mis- 
souri, swollen  and  black,  tore  tumultuously 
through  her  bar-locked  channels.  The  dis- 
tant upturned  fields,  the  timber  patches,  the 
feeble  young  corn  were  being  raked  and 
flattened  by  the  teeth  of  the  wind,  that  now 
swooped  low  and  bit  and  crunched  at  the 
ground,  now  rose,  screaming,  and  sent  the 
very  clouds  driving  before  it.  On  the  top 
of  the  knoll,  Shore  stopped  triumphantly, 
and  the  other  two  stopped  with  him. 

As  they  stood  watching  the  gray,  wild 
weather,  —  Shore  jubilant,  his  temporary 
exhilaration  overriding  the  memory  of  his 
175 


HENDERSON 

affliction,  whole  again  by  virtue  of  his  re- 
newed physical  joy  in  living,  —  a  blue-gold 
gleam  shot  out  of  the  sky,  spiking  the  air 
with  blinding  needles.  In  the  flash  that  fol- 
lowed, Henderson,  benumbed,  helpless,  ting- 
ling, heard  somewhere  above  them  the 
popping  and  straining  of  tough  fibres,  and 
knew  that  the  big  walnut  was  falling  toward 
them,  but  could  move  neither  hand  nor  foot 
in  the  voltaic  shock  upon  him.  With  his 
wide-open,  staring  eyes  he  could  see,  how- 
ever, —  see  the  woman  standing  as  he  stood, 
dazed,  helpless,  —  see  Hardin  Shore's  one 
mighty  arm  upheld,  the  corded  muscles 
standing  out  like  cables  under  the  velvet 
sleeve,  his  face  lit  with  a  proud  confidence  ; 
see  the  tree  deflected  and  go  crashing  to  the 
ground  beyond  them  ;  see  Shore's  foot  slip, 
and  Shore  go  down  under  the  trunk,  while 
they  two  stood  by,  helpless,  and  the  farm- 
hands came  running  from  the  barn. 

The  wind  went  higher  yet  by  night,  but 
176 


THE   WAY  OF  THE   STRONG 

the  sun  set  red  and  glorious.  In  a  bedroom 
in  the  foreland  farmhouse  a  strong  man  lay 
dying,  and  his  passing  was  no  small  thing, 
but  glorious,  like  the  setting  of  the  sun. 

"  How  much  better,  how  much  better,"  he 
murmured  to  two  who  knelt  beside  him,  "  to 
lay  down  this  maimed  body  for  you  both,  — 
to  pay  you  back  for  your  fight  for  my  life." 
An  illumination  lay  on  his  face ;  he  looked 
as  though  he  were  breathing  light.  "  It  was 
a  great  chance,"  —  he  turned  to  the  woman 
beside  him  pleadingly,  as  though  he  must 
reconcile  her  to  his  choice,  —  "I  would  have 
tried  to  live  just  because  you  wanted  it  so  ; 
I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  it ;  but  it  would 
have  been  hard  to  live  as  I  must  have  lived, 
and  I  can't  help  being  glad  that  the  matter 
got  beyond  us,  —  and  you  must  try  to  see 
that  this  sort  of  dying  is  better  —  than  any 
sort  of  living."  He  held  to  her  hand,  the 
strength  of  his  love  surging  toward  her  as 
the  strength  of  his  body  ebbed;  then  his 
eyes  closed  softly  for  a  moment.  When 
177 


HENDERSON 

they  opened  again  they  fell  upon  the  man 
beside  him. 

"Henderson?" 

"  I  am  here,  Hard.  But,  oh,  God !  if  I 
were  not  here !  If  I  could  have  died 
instead ! " 

"  Ah,  that  shows  this  is  a  great  fate,  — 
when  you  envy  me,  old  man,  —  but  don't 
begrudge  me  my  destiny,"  —  his  voice  weak- 
ened and  stopped,  his  eyes  roaming  out  of 
window,  where  the  yellow  road  rose  out 
of  his  childhood  to  the  top  of  the  hill  and 
lost  itself  on  the  other  side. 

In  the  swales  the  tough  grass  dipped  and 
rose  ;  on  the  hills  the  trees  went  like  flails ; 
overhead  was  the  roar  of  an  unseen  surf. 
The  sun  went  down  trailing  glory  as  Hardin 
Shore  turned  his  illumined  face  toward  it. 

"  How  much  better  "  —  they  heard  him 
say  again,  a  final  Praise-God  in  his  tone  — 
"that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for  his 
friends,  —  it 's  the  way  of  the  strong." 


178 


VI 

THE  BEGINNING 

THE  eventful  hour  of  the  day  had  come  for 
the  Penangton  depot.  The  train  from  St. 
Louis  for  Kansas  City  was  due.  Groups  of 
Penangtonians  stood  about.  For  every  per- 
son who  had  come  down  to  take  the  train, 
six  had  come  down  to  see  how  he  looked 
when  he  did  it.  The  ticket-agent's  assistant, 
who  handled  the  baggage,  was  frightfully 
busy  with  two  trunks  and  a  valise.  The  bus 
had  backed  up  to  the  platform.  Four  bug- 
gies and  a  buckboard  were  at  the  hitching- 
rail  over  by  the  Thorley-Penryn  Serotherapy 
Stables.  The  teamsters  who  had  got  in  line 
in  front  of  the  Penryn  Coal  Pockets  stood 
up  in  their  wagons  to  watch.  Some  coal- 
diggers,  pot-black  from  the  little  lamps  on 
their  caps  to  the  broken  shoes  on  their  feet, 
stopped  on  their  way  home  from  the  Penryn 
179 


HENDERSON 

mines  and  arranged  themselves  like  a  row 
of  crows  on  the  platform.  Some  gay  young 
girls  waited  on  the  bridge  between  the  street- 
car track  and  the  depot.  Little  quivers  of 
excitement  shook  through  everybody.  A 
negro,  in  a  road-wagon,  held  the  reins  across 
a  pair  of  pawing,  impatient  horses  behind 
the  depot. 

Just  beyond  the  track  the  ground  sloped 
upward  for  a  few  feet  and  was  topped  by 
a  rail  fence.  On  the  fence,  side  by  side,  sat 
five  men,  their  knees  up  under  their  chins, 
their  eyes  down  the  track  to  the  east.  Occa- 
sionally one  of  the  five  snatched  at  a  blade 
of  the  high  grass  pushing  up  about  his  feet, 
occasionally  all  five  laughed  at  nothing. 
The  little  thin,  hard-faced  man  was  Lowry 
Penryn.  The  three  well  set-up,  important 
young  fellows  were  his  sons.  The  high- 
headed  man  with  the  light  in  his  eyes  was 
Henderson. 

"Say,  I  wish  she  would  come  on.  Say, 
think  of  her  being  away  for  two  years." 
180 


THE   BEGINNING 

Edgar,  the  youngest  Penryn,  took  a  deep 
breath.  "Bet  you  won't  find  that  sticky, 
empty  feeling  around  the  house  to-night," 
he  went  on.  "  Bet  you  everything  '11  seem  all 
right  from  the  ground  up,  minute  I  get 
sight  of  Lynn.  D'you  ever  notice  how 
my  sister  is  the  whole  thing,  Garth  ?  "  The 
youngest  Penryn  was  at  the  age  when  the 
masculine  judgment  is  sanest  and  coolest  in 
its  analysis  of  the  eternal  feminine,  viewing 
it  telescopically,  as  one  views  the  stars,  get- 
ting large  abstractions  from  it.  He  was  for 
the  moment  too  interested  in  the  way  he 
was  handling  his  subject  to  care  for  an 
answer.  "Lynn  has  her  looks  and  her 
brains  and  her  —  well,  that  way  she  makes 
you  glad  she 's  there.  There  ain't  many 
women  up  to  my  sister,  Garth?"  He  ap- 
pealed to  Henderson,  as  to  a  confidential 
friend,  with  direct  inquiry,  at  last. 

"  It  seems  to  me  you  take  the  right  view, 
Edgar,"  assented  Henderson  gravely. 

"  Well,  but  two  years !  That 's  a  good 
181 


HENDERSON 

while  to  have  managed  without  her.  She 
won't  go  to  Europe  again,  sure."  It  was 
hard-faced  Lowry  himself  who  spoke,  his 
queer  crippled  feelings  hobbling  out  jerkily 
on  his  sharp  voice.  Each  of  the  five  nodded 
with  a  little  flare  of  conviction  on  that 
count. 

"  Hi !  Hi ! "  cried  Maxwell  Penryn  then ; 
"  hear  that  ?  She 's  a-coming." 

The  five  jumped  from  the  fence  on  the 
instant  and  hurried  across  the  track  to  the 
platform.  Henderson  drew  a  great  sighing 
breath  and  allowed  the  father  and  brothers 
to  pass  ahead  of  him  along  the  cinder-path 
toward  the  Pullman  car.  The  train  slowed 
down,  the  Penryns  reached  the  sleeper,  a 
little  boy  rushed  through  the  sleeper  door 
and  tumbled  hilariously  into  the  arms  of  the 
Penryn  men.  Behind  the  little  boy  came 
a  woman.  For  a  second  Henderson  could 
see  her  on  the  car-steps,  smiling  down  at 
her  father  and  brothers,  see  the  strength  and 
symmetry  of  her  figure,  see  all  the  little 
182 


THE  BEGINNING 

things  that  made  her  so  inexpressibly,  so 
comprehensively  the  right  woman,  —  the 
youthful  joy  of  life  that  radiated  from  her, 
the  world-old  deep  sweetness  of  her  eyes,  the 
humorous  crinkle  at  their  corners,  the  lithe 
grace  of  her  movements,  the  quick  search- 
ing glance  across  the  heads  of  the  people 
below  her. 

Then  came  the  meeting  between  her  eyes 
and  his,  and  her  wonderful,  vital  effect  upon 
him. 

"  Oh,  I  am  glad  that  you  are  here  ! "  she 
cried,  her  hand  in  his,  —  trembling  a  little 
in  his,  —  a  delicate  emphasis  in  her  inflec- 
tion. Her  gaze  flew  past  him  like  a  long 
arrow  of  light  as  she  tried  to  talk  to  him, 
and  she  turned  from  him  quickly  to  speak 
to  the  Penangtonians  who  were  pushing 
toward  her.  It  was  the  old,  gay  diffidence, 
part  of  the  enticing  remoteness  that  was 
such  an  exquisite  part  of  her. 

When  he  got  a  chance  to  speak  to  her 
again  he  told  her  that  he  wanted  her  to 
183 


HENDERSON 

•walk  back  over  the  hills  with  him,  and  she 
said  that  she  would. 

Then  the  Penryn  men  took  the  little  boy 
and  got  in  the  surrey  and  started  home- 
ward, and  Henderson  and  she  left  the  depot 
together.  They  crossed  the  bridge  slowly. 
They  went  up  the  plank  walk  slowly.  The 
air  was  musky  with  fragrance.  On  the  hills 
the  fruit  trees  were  blooming.  The  great 
domes  of  pink  and  white  blossoms  looked 
like  wind  temples.  Overhead  the  birds 
started  lullabys  that  drowsed  away  sleepily, 
leaving  the  trees  shaking  in  the  general 
high  tremble  of  music. 

"  The  old  leafmess  of  the  town  is  here 
again,"  he  said  softly. 

"And  the  old  smell  of  lilacs  still  drifts 
over  the  fences,"  she  answered  as  softly. 

To  Henderson  it  was  a  tremendous  thing 
to  be  walking  beside  her,  filled  as  he  was 
with  the  sense  that  he  was  seeing  her  for  the 
very  last  time  as  something  separate  and 
apart  from  himself.  He  took  delight  in  this 
184 


THE  BEGINNING 

suspended  interval,  keeping  a  little  distance 
between  them  for  the  sake  of  a  mental  per- 
spective, looking  down  upon  Her,  watching 
the  ways  of  the  shyness  that  now  and  then 
made  her  catch  at  her  breath,  remembering 
the  past,  seeing  the  future. 

They  talked  of  Penangton's  growth  next. 
Three  houses  had  tumbled  down,  but  four 
new  ones  had  been  built.  He  stopped  her  to 
point  them  out  with  his  bamboo  stick.  Stop- 
ping where  they  did  reminded  him  of  some- 
thing. 

"  It  was  just  here,"  he  said  reminiscently, 
"  that  I  put  down  my  grips  one  October 
night  and  tried  to  look  Penangton  in  the 
eye  for  the  first  time." 

"  And  it  was  just  there,"  she  answered,  as 
they  continued  their  slow  progress,  "  that  we 
met  in  the  mule-car.  And  there 's  the  saloon 
where  the  driver  was  drunk.  And  yonder  go 
the  very  mules  you  drove." 

"  Ah,  then,  you  remember  ?  " 

"  You  were  a  young  doctor  straying  into 
185 


HENDEKSON 

Penangton  in  search  of  a  location,  and  I  was 
an  old  Penangtonian  coming  home  for  a  visit. 
And  we  banged  down  to  my  father's  house 
all  alone  in  the  dingy  little  car." 

"We  sang  and  laughed.  I  remember 
that." 

"  Yes.  But  when  we  came  out  now  and 
then  into  the  flicker  of  the  street-lamps,  I 
could  see  your  face  plainly,  see  the  defeat  on 
it,  see  the  reckless  slouch  of  your  shoulders. 
You  were  almost  ready  to  stop  that  night, 
were  n't  you  ?  " 

"  I  've  been  ready  to  stop  plenty  of  nights 
since,  too." 

"  But  now  success  is  upon  you,  and  you 
are  glad  that  you  went  on  ?  " 

She  was  looking  out  over  the  most 
distant  hills  that  broke  and  tumbled  into 
the  Missouri.  From  where  they  stood  they 
could  see  the  flying  light  on  the  yellow  river. 
The  dusk  had  rilled  mysteriously  with 
shadows. 

"  Ah,  success  is  a  little  thing,"  he  told  her 
186 


THE   BEGINNING 

at  last,  half  lifting  his  hand  toward  her.  She 
would  not  look  at  him,  and  his  hand  dropped 
back  quietly. 

"  I  'm  glad  you  did  n't  come  East  to  meet 
me,"  she  said,  after  a  long  silence. 

"  Well,  it  was  n't  easy  not  to.  But  you 
said  not,  and  I  had  stuck  it  out  so  long  that 
I  thought  I  ought  to  stick  it  out  to  the  finish. 
You  see,  I  have  always  wanted  everything  to 
get  right  here,  here  where  I  first  saw  you." 
His  words  were  brave  and  candid,  but  some- 
thing of  her  timidity  suddenly  communicated 
itself  to  him  and  made  him  realize  that  that 
fine  reticence  of  hers  was  going  to  be  a  hard 
thing  to  get  through.  Then,  with  the  very 
keenness  of  the  realization,  he  became  im- 
petuous and  assertive. 

"  I  told  Judge  Harmon  to  happen  in  at 
your  father's  this  evening  after  supper,"  he 
said,  "  and  I  have  a  marriage  license  in  my 
pocket." 

The  words  burdened  the  air  with  a  yet 
more  mystic  fragrance,  bewildering  and 
187 


HENDEKSON 

breath-taking.  She  stopped  in  the  street  for 
a  half  second,  her  breath  shaking,  her  long 
lashes  veiling  her  eyes.  "  To-morrow  would 
n't  do  as  well?"  she  began  furtively. 

"  To-morrow  would  n't  do  at  all.  You  must 
remember  that  you  have  already  made  me 
wait  a  long  time.  This  is  the  best  way." 

She  bit  her  lip,  and  one  of  her  little  gay 
laughs  escaped  her.  They  had  turned  into  a 
dark,  leafy  street,  and  were  now  at  the  gate 
in  front  of  the  Penryn  house. 

"  Once,"  he  said,  stopping  at  the  gate,  in 
the  resistless  grasp  of  the  future,  "  once,  as 
we  stood  here  together,  I  dared  to  say  that 
I  hoped  it  was  not  the  end,  and  you  had  to 
tell  me  that  you  thought  it  was  —  look  at 
me  !  —  well,  and  now  ?  " 

"Well,  and  now  I  dare  tell  you  — "  she 
began  bravely,  her  soul  flashing  through  the 
little  break  in  her  plastic  strength,  but  before 
the  leaping  light  in  his  eyes  her  soul  took 
fright,  and  fled  back  to  cloister. 

"  And  now  you  dare  tell  me  ?  "  he  urged, 
188 


THE  BEGINNING 

pushing  after  with  all  his  right  and  might; 
"  now  you  dare  tell  me  what  ?  " 

"  —  dare  tell  you  that  I  think  it 's  the 
beginning,"  she  answered  breathlessly ;  and, 
slipping  by  him,  went  through  the  door  of 
the  great  house  into  the  hall,  where  she  stood 
waiting  for  him,  safer  from  the  view  of 
passers-by,  the  red  glow  from  the  chandelier 
f ailing  upon  her,  her  slender,  firm  body  sway- 
ing a  little  toward  him,  her  hands  held  out 
to  him.  For  another  short  instant  he  could 
not  go  to  her,  could  only  stand  voiceless, 
looking  at  her,  enmeshed  in  the  chance  of 
going  to  her  ;  she  was  so  perfectly  what  he 
had  waited  for,  with  the  glow  upon  her,  the 
love-light  in  her  eyes. 

Then  he  ran  up  the  steps  and  closed  the 
door  softly  behind  him. 


189 


dfte  fiitoeriibe 

BUetrotyped  and  printed  by  H.  O.  Hougkion  A*  Co, 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.S.  A. 


A     000  1 29  040     2 


